NEWS
KSA
Analytics gaining ground in Saudi
Arabia’s manufacturing industry
With the Internet of Things (IoT) transforming the ways in
which sensor-generated data is gathered, evaluated and
leveraged, various industries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
are realising the importance of analytics in enabling more
efficient and competitive monetisation strategies.
By streamlining processes from design to delivery, the Saudi
manufacturing industry is leading the charge of heightened
interconnected machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), Saudi
Arabian IT spending in the manufacturing sector is expected
to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
7.5% from 2013 to 2018.
Dubbed as the Industrial Revolution 4.0, disruptive IoT
technologies are poised to play an essential role in the
Kingdom’s manufacturing sector over the next five to 10
years. As intelligent cloud-based applications transmit and
interpret data that allow factories to get smarter, business
analytics will serve as the key enabler in collating data that
optimises overall production systems and processes.
SAS is sponsoring the Plant Maintenance and Reliability
Congress at Sofitel The Corniche, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia,
from 9-10 March 2016. As the summit’s analytics partner, SAS
aims to create an awareness on the importance of business
intelligence and analytics in achieving an integrated, marketdriven approach across the manufacturing industry.
“Driven by the rise in data volumes and the emergence of
analytics and business intelligence capabilities, we are in the
next phase of the manufacturing sector’s digitisation. The
first wave of these intelligent factories are using industrial
machines that are connected and communicating with one
another via sensors that collect and evaluate data,” said Yigit
Karabag, Information Management & Analytics Practice
Manager, Middle East, Turkey & Africa at SAS.
STC chooses Juniper
Networks to boost fixed &
mobile Internet
Juniper Networks has announced that
Saudi Telecom Company (STC), has for
the first time in the region, deployed
Juniper Networks PTX5000 Series Packet
Transport Routers to expand its fixed and
mobile Internet backbone.
The new backbone will enable STC to
handle services and functions that can
scale seamlessly in order to keep pace
with growing customer demand. The
expansion project is designed to provide
ultra-high speed Internet access to 3G/4G
and fixed subscribers in many locations
throughout the Middle East.
8
INTELLIGENTCIO
In addition to the PTX Series, the project
also includes Juniper’s SDN-ready
MX2020 3D Universal Edge Router, the
industry’s highest throughput edge router.
This choice of systems was especially
valuable to STC, as the company
was able to easily integrate the new
equipment running on the Juniper
Networks Junos operating system
without disruption to existing network
operations.
“We invest in our network to stay ahead
of our customers’ ever increasing
expectations for more bandwidth and
new applications and services. Juniper’s
innovative technologies allow us to
maintain our market leadership and
future-proof our business through
the deployment of state-of-the-art
technologies. This is an impressive
leap forward in network capacity
and performance to meet customer
expectations,” said Eng. Nasser Al Nasser,
senior vice president for technology and
operations at Saudi Telecom Company.
www.intelligentcio.com