Cloud has become synonymous with efficiency, 24/7 availability, flexibility, and convenience at affordable costs. Both regional and global customers are increasingly investing in cloud technologies and cloud-based services to enhance business productivity and growth.
The pandemic has further accelerated cloud adoption and brought its unique benefits to the forefront, driving naysayers to change their attitudes towards the technology. Businesses are realising the importance of developing a cloud- first strategy to have a competitive advantage and ensure business continuity. Additionally, the launch of cloud regions from hyperscalers has fuelled the growth of cloud computing in the Middle East.
Understanding that cloud is the way forward, Saudi-based telecom products and services provider Escotele, recently migrated its workloads to Google Cloud. Escotele was looking to increase its productivity, enable smooth collaboration, high availability for its app, and secure remote access in a distributed work environment.
Younis Abu Kenneh, IT Manager, Escotele, said, “We decided to host applications on cloud because it is easy to connect to them from anywhere and does not need any resources or management from the company. Cloud allows us to achieve our business outcomes without having to invest in any infrastructure.
“We believe cloud is the future– it helps us to ensure application availability and speed are at its highest performance. In our business, application, connectivity, availability, and speed are of utmost importance.”
Kenneh explains that the company decided to embrace cloud and move to Google Cloud Platform as its application needed to process multiple transactions simultaneously in less than a second. This would be seamless and efficient on Google Cloud Platform. Escotele approached iSolutions, an information technology company that specialises in providing high-end, innovative tech solutions, in helping it transition to Google Cloud. As a Google premier partner in the GCC, iSolutions boasts many years of experience empowering and engaging customers in the cloud space.
He adds, “Our implementation partner iSolutions supported us in our strategic planning and rolling out our cloud strategy. They helped us a lot with the planning and they handledthe implementation process from A to Z – meeting our objective, which was to have the full solution securely hosted on the cloud. Our backup is also hosted on Google Cloud in a different region.”
Escotele and iSolutions refactored the application before migrating to Google, and according to Kenneh, the company didn’t face any issues during the process.
“This has greatly improved the availability of the application. We have expanded from 500 devices in the market to around 3000 devices until now and the plan is to reach 5000 devices before the end of 2022. This is coming from the fact that our app was running smoothly the whole of last year and that we didn’t face any issues that caused a shutdown in the server. There was no downtime for even a day, and we also didn’t face any cybersecurity attacks.”
He explains that the firm set up more than one layer of backup for its security based on iSolutions’ recommendation. “We set up some rules, and so far, we have never faced any issues related to security.”
Kenneh says Google Cloud Platform offers an immense value proposition to the company.
“We were extremely pleased with the unique value Google Cloud offers our business. Its solid and flexible infrastructure, auto scalability to scale up and down when needed, and the fact that our server didn’t go down even for a single day, have proved that our decision to go with Google Cloud Platform was the right one. And what’s more, we didn’t have to worry about the infrastructure as it’s all provided by Google.
“Saudi Aramco and Google Cloud announced in 2020 that a cloud region is going to be established in the kingdom. Once this goes live, we will not be facing any issues with the regulations required for the Saudi government.”
He further adds that the support and services the company received from Google Cloud and iSolutions, and the cost of Google Cloud Platform make it incomparable to any other players in the market.
“Google Cloud is well known to us with its solid infrastructure. This is why we trust Google more than any of its competitors. While comparing all the cloud providers in Saudi Arabia, we found that the support we were getting from iSolutions was the best, and the prices were reasonable compared to other vendors.”
By moving to Google Cloud, Escotele has begun its journey to establishing a strong cloud-first strategy, which will shape its future growth.
Kenneh concludes, “A cloud- first strategy allows businesses to save money on software, platforms, and infrastructure. Instead of building their own tech stack, they can engage a premier partner like iSolutions who can provide premium services at affordable costs. Google Cloud Partners, like iSolutions, support businesses to get access to high- end cost-efficient services.”
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