Dubai Smart Government launches Shared Disaster Recovery Site (SDRS) for 28 Dubai Government entities

UAE, October 18, 2014 - Dubai Smart Government (DSG) has announced its partnership with Etisalat to provide a unified Shared Disaster Recovery Site (SDRS) for 28 local government entities with the aim of managing a secure government information security environment, ensure business continuity and contribute to the sustainable development of Dubai as the world’s smartest city.

H.E Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General of Dubai Smart Government, said: “The launch of SDRS comes in implementation of the decision issued by HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, on Dubai Government’s information security, which is aimed at devising an integrated strategy that would lead to a unified policy for protecting the government’s information and information systems and at providing a reliable environment for storing and recovering such information and information systems based on the world’s best practices.”

Bin Humaidan added: “The rapid developments and the nature of the current stage, which depends on the provision of government services through smart devices for our citizens’ happiness, necessitate us to ensure that these services and our back-end government ICT services are safe, protected and backed-up with the aim of gaining our customers’ satisfaction and trust. In this connection, we have been keen to comply with Dubai Government’s Information Security Regulation, particularly the 7th domain, which stipulates planning for continuity of work and activities and ensuring that IT services and infrastructure are capable of recovering from failures resulting from errors, planned attacks or disasters.”

Bin Humaidan added that similar to the other shared services currently being provided by DSG to government entities, setting up an SDRS at the government level would contribute to creating a green economy and a sustainable green environment and ensuring continuity of work sustainability and security of government digital assets.

Meanwhile, H.E. Saleh Al Abdouli, Etisalat CEO, said: “This agreement is a strong indication of the trust that Dubai Government has in the capacity of our data centres to store data as per the highest security degrees and recover data in case of disasters. This is supported by a dedicated working team which is skillful in managing data centres round the clock.

Abdouli added: “Our investment and interest in data centres began many years ago as part of a clear strategy that stresses the importance of data for government and private sector and underlines the necessity for accessing it at any time. This strategy has led to several sophisticated centres to be set up all over the UAE as per the highest classifications in the field of storing and recovering data.”  

Matar Al Humairi, Director of Infrastructure Department at DSG, said: “Optimum investment in an advanced SDRS would minimize and rationalize government spending through reducing the high cost of setting up such centres in each government entity separately. It would also reduce the operating and maintenance costs and provide a high quality and efficient service, thereby enhancing the optimum use of government resources and supporting the leadership’s prudent vision for the UAE to become one of the best countries of the world by 2021.”

The launch of the SDRA comes in implementation of the recommendations made by DSG’s specialized teams following its preliminary technological study that covered 30 Dubai government entities with the aim of unifying efforts, understanding and evaluating the current capabilities and needs for SDRS among Dubai Government entities and identifying the location and operational costs of an SDRS.  The study, which took three months and was conducted between September to the end of November last year, included gathering the required basic information through site visits and workshops with government partners, studying the specifications and design of the SDRS for using cloud computing, shared network infrastructure, return on investment and alternative solutions for disaster recovery.