UAE-based Ajman Bank has partnered with Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation, to build the largest co-location datacentre in the Northern Emirates.

The 1,000-sq-m Tier-III facility at Ajman Bank’s premises was implemented by Schneider Electric through the installation of its holistic network architecture from StruxureWare for Datacenters suite.

The company has also implemented CCTV security equipment to tighten building access and facilitate monitoring of the premises.

The new datacentre is built at sea level and designed with flood control as well as fire detection and suppression features. The implementation currently included 220 racks, each with a capacity of 10 kilowatts (kW), CCUs of more than 1,800 kW, and a UPS offering 2,400 KVA will full redundancy and a proven record uptime of 99.9999 per cent.

In order to manage power density, the facility includes robust heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. It includes recovery software and storage space.

Salem Al Shamsi, the chief operating officer, said: "Ajman Bank is still paving the way for a sustainable banking solution, offering its clients integrated and competitive online banking services which can promote the ambitious transformation toward a green economy, as per the Ajman Vision 2021."

"The bank has harnessed technology and digitisation to enhance the customer experience," he added.

Abdul Rahman Jaroudi, the head of Information Technology, Ajman Bank said: "Today, we need to adapt to digitisation in the IT while addressing privacy, security, building and environmental regulations.  Creating an IT system which would cater to these needs in a balanced way was a priority for Ajman Bank."

"This is when we brought a partner – Schneider Electric – on board. The colocation datacentre is an ideal model for Ajman Bank, given the reduced capital expenditures (Capex) and the flexibility to scale up based on our growth," he added.

Ziad Youssef, the vice president of ITD, Gulf Countries and Pakistan at Schneider Electric, said: "Ajman Bank came to us with a specific mandate - they required a robust system to protect their digital assets, sensitive data and customer information. Being a financial services provider with no luxury of business downtime, they were looking for a solution that would withstand both planned and unforeseen crises."

"As they are an organisation committed to becoming sustainable both operationally and environmentally, we identified with their goals and proposed a combination of solutions that would best suit their needs. Since its implementation, we believe it has served them well in managing and protecting their data and creating a digital wall of resilience against threats," he added.-TradeArabia News Service