Riyadh International Catering Corp (RICC), the developmental licensee for the McDonald's Corporation in Saudi Arabia, has invested in a new data centre fitted with connectivity infrastructure from Reichle & De-Massari (R&M).

 

The Riyadh-based data centre will serve as the IT operations hub for over 130 food outlets across the kingdom and will host applications that are vital to services offered to the quick service restaurant giant’s customers and employees in the country, said a statement.

 

Waleed Naseer F Al Saud, vice president, Business Support, RICC, said the data centre is the ‘brain’ of the organisation’s IT infrastructure and is critical to delivering applications such as email exchange, ERP, reports, data base, web applications, digital signage, and digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB).

 

In order to ensure its new data centre leverages the best physical connectivity solutions, McDonald’s selected R&M, a vendor known for its innovative Swiss-quality cabling solutions. 

 

“To maintain the highest quality in our food and service, we have to ensure that our back-end operations and applications are also of the highest quality," said Al Saud.

 

"We therefore needed a connectivity infrastructure that was very high-performance, reliable, and capable of scaling to support the rapid growth that we have been enjoying in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

 

Guided by We Care Technology, R&M’s local partner, McDonald’s engaged with the Swiss manufacturer. The quick service restaurant giant benefitted from R&M’s strong presence in the kingdom as the vendor’s consultants also helped frame the BOQ for the project. 

 

This Level-1 support from R&M also extended through the design, implementation and training phases of the project. 

 

The new data centre now boasts a number of cutting-edge R&M solutions including Cat6A cabling, HD patch panels, OM3 fiber optic cabling, server cabinets, as well as R&M’s copper and fibre optic raceway systems, said the statement.

 

The technology highlight is the R&MinteliPhy Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) solution which has been used for real-time visibility as well as seamless monitoring and management of the entire physical network. 

 

With features such as easy and up-to-date documentation, remote management of infrastructure work orders and simplified asset management, R&MinteliPhy will allow McDonald’s to better plan and manage future infrastructure expansions so it can extend its branch network without being held back by IT constrains.

 

The R&MinteliPhy system was designed to allow full infrastructure management of McDonald’s data centre and office cabling cabinets at its head office in Riyadh. With this system, a single analyser at the end-of-row cabinet controls all cabinets in that row, which will help McDonald’s IT team to save critical space in that data center. 

 

The system is currently monitoring more than 1,000 Cat6a and fibre optic links in the data center and is ready to be linked with remote locations as well for full future management.

 

Manzoor Ali, managing director - Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, R&M, said: “As per McDonald’s request, the R&MinteliPhy system was also used to monitor – via SNMP – other devices in the network for more integration with the Building Management System (BMS) and active equipment. We also issued a 25 years system warranty to the customer after thorough testing and checking of all links. 

 

"Two months after the installation and testing was completed, an extensive training was held for all the technical leaders as a part of R&M Academy.” - TradeArabia News Service