COUNTRY FOCUS: UAE
“
CIOS NEED TO FOSTER A
CULTURE CENTRED ON
TRUST, ACCESSIBILITY,
AND COLLABORATION TO HAVE
THEIR EMPLOYEES BE ENGAGED
AND PRODUCTIVE.
to explain the benefits of this digital
transformation project.
Why is it important for your
employees to have consistent access
to business applications?
If you look at the environment where we are
working, we are accessing information all
the time to conduct work so our information
and our system became very important. We
have our workforce on the move, away from
the office. They need updates, they need
to access information so they need to be
mobile with full access to their desktop; it’s
very important.
How has the system allowed
you to improve the efficiency
of your services?
We have lots of different systems running
on all sorts of platforms. VMWare’s system
unifies our ability to access different
platforms. We have almost 75 different
systems running on multiple platforms. Using
a virtual machine gives us a more uniformed
way of accessing information.
What is the importance of having
the ability to allow employees
www.intelligentcio.com
to access business applications
available from any device, at any
time, from any location?
One of our challenges is that people have
different devices they want to access to
gain information. Each application needs its
own environment to run. Virtualisation has
the ability to encapsulate and capture all
that functionality.
How has the system increased Dubai
Municipality’s staff productivity?
Employees have better and easier access
to information which increases their
productivity. They have the ability to
access information at any time on all of
the systems. We are extending our working
hours basically.
What are the advantages of your new
system compared to your old one?
With virtualisation you are loading up
your whole system to the cloud. With
virtualisation you are maximising your
resources to the maximum possible. We can
transfer our server anywhere at any time.
It has made our ability to access the server
easier and cheaper.
Why did you choose to work with
the provider?
VMWare became the standard for
virtualisation. They have, I think, 80 or
90% of the market. The ability of access to
people to support you is important. You can
have a great product but without support it
will not work.
How far has the system future
proofed your company?
Since virtualisation came basically it
decoupled the software from the hardware.
Previously it was the hardware that
kept becoming old and obsolete. With
virtualisation the hardware gets updated.
Have the staff given the system a
positive response?
People are extremely happy now because
they can access information from anywhere,
very easily. It gives them the ability to see
the same thing the customer sees. They do
not need to go to the customer.
We have the ability for people to move
when they work. From home they can do all
their work. n
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