Du chooses Cisco’s ACI

Du has selected Cisco to deploy Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) that offers full visibility and integrated management of both physical and virtual networked IT resources. It is built around the needs of applications. du will be the first Telecom company in the world to deploy this solution.

Due to rapid growth and ever increasing demand for faster network due to available applications for end users and enterprises for faster way of doing business, home automation and smart city data center infrastructure is quickly transitioning from an environment that supports relatively static workloads confined to specific infrastructure silos to a highly dynamic cloud environment in which any workload can be provisioned anywhere and can scale on demand according to application needs. However, it also places new requirement on data center network infrastructure.

To cope with these growing demand for IT application and hosting and cloud services du has chosen and deployed Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), Network  for its next generation data center. Cisco ACI empowers du’s DC (Data Centre) strategy with an application-focused fabric, a centralised management with real-time application health monitoring, a foundation for cloud automation and orchestration, a highly secure multitenant environment, along with extensibility and openness. In addition, Cisco’s innovation in optical transceiver technology using its 40G BiDi transceivers allows for the reuse of current 10G cabling to reduce costly fiber upgrades and provides a clear roadmap for upgrades to 100G.

Saleem Al Balooshi, Executive Vice President – Network Development & Operations, du, said: “Based on industry standards, Cisco’s next generation data center solutions will enable our IT infrastructure to meet business demands for new applications as well as accelerate application deployment cycles to drive faster business processes enabling higher levels of productivity and performance and improving operational simplicity.”

The 100G ready Data Centre will strengthen du’s next generation cloud-based hosting services and data, Voice and video services for its Mobile and fixed customers and enterprise business users (including the Smart Government Initiative).

Rabih Dabboussi, Managing Director, Cisco UAE, stated: “Applications are becoming the lifeblood of businesses globally and this is no different for organisations like du. Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure will help du deliver new products and services, manage risk and security threats, empower employees, and drive productivity into their organisation. As billions of new valuable connections form to create an Internet of Everything (IoE) that most of us will experience through applications, the focus on rapid and consistent application deployment today has become even greater.The future of networking with ACI is about providing a network that is deployed, monitored, and managed in a fashion that supports this rapid change. Cisco ACI does so through the reduction of complexity and a common policy framework that can automate provisioning and managing of resources.”