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ASPGulf
Meets the Demands of a Growing Middle East ASP & Hosting
Markets with Help From Microsoft and Dell
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Case
Study
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Posted:
September 27, 2002
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ASPGulf provides financial and human resources, procurement,
distribution, customer relationship management applications,
productivity tools and messaging, hosting and collaboration
tools on a rental basis for a monthly fee. Its flexible, three-tier
architecture, which is based on Microsoft® software, Dell
PowerEdge™ servers, and Dell PowerVault™ storage solutions,
is introducing a new concept for accessing and operating information
technology in the Middle East.
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Situation
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ASPGulf is a leading Application Service Provider (ASP)
in the Middle East that enables business access to world-class
business applications without the traditional costs
and challenges. Its services are designed to reduce
the cost-of- ownership and complexity of enterprise
computing, while improving the quality of service for
small-to medium-sized businesses in the Middle East.
The company also offers its clients an in-depth understanding
of the complexities associated with running today’s
heterogeneous IT infrastructure and the special business
requirements of the Gulf region. ASPGulf’s services
are underpinned by services provided by Dubai Internet
City (DIC).
To meet the demands of a growing Middle East ASP market
and provide enterprise applications over the Internet
as an application provisioning service, ASPGulf needed
a robust, scalable IT environment. The company began
working closely with Microsoft early on to lay the groundwork
for the operating system and applications for its product
offerings, and looked to Dell for storage products to
support its services.
ASPGulf
wanted to own and manage the hosted environment—realizing
that
was a critical component behind delivery of its
service.
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Solution
“In evaluating solution options and vendors, we
looked for companies that would partner with our
organization and be truly interested in the success
of our business when recommending and providing
the right support,” noted Fadi Darwish, CEO of ASPGulf.
After reviewing proposals from virtually all the
big players in the enterprise storage and server
markets, ASPGulf selected Dell and Microsoft to
co-operate on designing its solution.
ASPGulf worked closely with Dell and Microsoft in
designing its three-tier infrastructure, which provides
the scalability and flexibility necessary for the
company’s future growth. With Exchange 2000 installed
on 6540 4-way Xeon servers clustered together to
a SAN backend for storage, ASPGulf receives an excellent
balance of price and performance, as well as the
ability to add storage on the fly to the Fibre Storage
SAN.
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 Solution
Overview |
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Company
ASPGulf
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Customer Profile
Headquartered in Dubai, the technology hub of
the Middle East, ASPGulf’s mission is to provide
best-of-breed Arabic and English enterprise
applications over the Internet as an application
provisioning service.
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Benefits
Reduced administrative costs, the ability to
increase capacity as needed, and maximum uptime
are significant benefits ASPGulf is realizing
after deploying Microsoft Exchange 2000 on its
6450 Xeon servers.
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Software and Services
Microsoft
Consulting Services
Microsoft
Exchange 2000 Server
Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional
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Hardware
- Dell PowerEdge Servers
- Dell PowerVault storage solutions
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Vertical Industries
Information Technology |
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Country/Region
United Arab Emirates |
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Solutions
B2B Electronic Commerce |
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Benefits
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Microsoft® Exchange 2000 gives ASPGulf the ability to provide
accounts in an ASP or pure hosted environment and provide customers
with the rich messaging and group working features of Exchange
2000 over the Web. In addition, by having Exchange 2000 deployed
on Microsoft-based clustered servers, ASPGulf has a robust solution
that offers maximum uptime as well as the scalability the organization
needs to meet growing business demands. Exchange 2000 allows
ASPGulf to provide a far greater SLA to its end customers and
add capacity as required. Administration of the storage solution,
and the data, is simplified by having a central SAN—this centralization
lowers the cost of the ASP model, which in turn allows ASPGulf
to be more competitive.
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A
Global Alliance
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ASPGulf established the first live data center in the region
at DIC in response to an increase in interest and demand for
hosted applications. It has relied on leading technologies to
build its state-of-the-art data center, which includes server
farms; networking components; physical security; the ASPGulf
Operation Center; storage area network, operating system, and
databases; a network management platform; and other components
required to provision applications and hosting services.
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“We
selected Dell and Microsoft because they weren’t just trying
to sell us a solution,” explained Darwish. Dell equipment is
fully certified on the Windows® 2000 platform, and the strength
of the Dell/Microsoft global alliance means that the companies
can quickly provide comprehensive support as technology evolves.
This was critical to ASPGulf. “We appreciate the dedicated efforts
and support demonstrated by our partners, and we are confident
that with their support, our solutions will deliver the absolute
reliability in services that we need to give our customers.”
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Microsoft Exchange 2000 provides rock-solid 24x7 messaging and
collaboration with low total cost of ownership. Designed with
mission-critical performance in mind, Exchange 2000 enables
access to the people and information you want, anytime and from
anywhere. Combining industry-leading reliability and scalability
with unmatched ease-of-management, Exchange 2000 seamlessly
integrates with Microsoft Windows® 2000 and takes advantage
of the full power of the Windows 2000 Active Directory®
directory service and security features. With Exchange 2000,
businesses today can further leverage their messaging infrastructure
with value-added collaborative solutions. Exchange 2000 is part
of Microsoft’s .NET Enterprise Server family for building, deploying,
and managing next generation integrated Web experiences.
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http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?casestudyid=11335&PF=yes |
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