As a premier datacenter provider in Oman and one of the largest, Oman Data Park needed a way to provide cloud services to companies while helping them adhere to the country’s data sovereignty regulation. By implementing Microsoft Azure Stack Hub, the managed services provider not only achieved its primary goals, but also opened entirely new markets for its business. In six months, the company expanded its customer base by 10 percent and cut operating costs in half. Oman Data Park also reduced deployment time by 75 percent.
“[Azure Stack Hub] helps elevate Oman’s information and communications sector to a new level of international expertise that offers a wide spectrum of Microsoft software portfolios while creating specialized jobs that support this environment.”
Maqbool Al Wahaibi, Chief Executive Officer, Oman Data Park
When Oman Data Park (ODP) started previewing Microsoft Azure Stack Hub, the company figured it could win new business by offering a way for Omani government organizations and related companies to use cloud services while adhering to the country’s data sovereignty regulation. It did. ODP also quickly discovered that it attracted other new business opportunities while substantially reducing its own operating costs.
Headquartered in Rusayl, ODP is one of the first and largest datacenter operators in the Sultanate of Oman. An Azure cloud services provider, ODP differentiates itself from the competition in Oman through its wide range of services and dedicated cybersecurity center. Its customers include more than 500 companies from the largest enterprises to small and midsized businesses. ODP sees itself playing a key role in the digital transformation of Oman, which is part of the country’s Vision 2040 strategy.
ODP sales of Azure public cloud services to government and private entities were limited, owing to regulations that required them to keep their data in Oman. Since Microsoft does not have a physical Azure datacenter in the country, ODP saw an opportunity to provide government and other customers with local cloud services built on Azure technology.
“Now any entity can come onboard and benefit from the wide portfolio of Azure services,” says Maqbool Al Wahaibi, CEO at Oman Data Park. “[Azure Stack Hub] helps elevate Oman’s information and communications sector to a new level of international expertise that offers a wide spectrum of Microsoft software portfolios while creating specialized jobs that support this environment.”
Adds Sukhwinder Singh, Senior Solutions Architect at Oman Data Park, “This was an opportunity for us, not just with government customers but also with banking, oil and gas, and healthcare customers who were also impacted by the regulation.”
Even for customers not required to keep data in-country, latency can be an issue, depending on the type of workload and number of users. Bandwidth in the Middle East is limited, so the price is much higher there than in most other regions of the world. Obtaining and paying for bandwidth to secure adequate latency for some applications is expensive.
In addition, some Omani customers still preferred to run some services locally for their own reasons, even if they were not limited by the data sovereignty regulation. But they could not because they lacked the IT staff to manage the services.
Extending the innovation of the cloud
ODP realized that adopting Azure Stack Hub could help. The integrated hardware system, with software pre-installed on validated hardware, brings the innovation of cloud computing to any environment so companies can build and implement hybrid applications anywhere. It extends Azure services and capabilities, creating a highly reliable shared platform so organizations can run apps consistently across their entire IT landscape. Data and applications can be deployed across public Azure and ODP’s multitenant Azure Stack Hub to meet specific business requirements such as regulatory compliance, data sensitivity, security preferences, and access speed.
ODP started implementing Azure Stack Hub in mid-2019 and launched its hybrid service in February 2020. The company’s infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings include Azure Virtual Machines and virtual machine scale set, containers, networking, storage, and Azure Key Vault. Its platform as a service (PaaS) offerings include Azure Service Fabric, Azure database service, Azure App Service, Azure Functions, and Azure Marketplace.
The hybrid services were welcomed by customers. In the six months following the launch, ODP’s customer base grew by 10 percent, according to Santosh Dave, ODP’s Business Channel Manager. They were attracted by several things.
New customers in Oman and around the world
ODP can now host data locally, offering a way for customers to meet data regulations while still taking advantage of Azure services. Because the platform is consistent across both the Azure cloud platform and Azure Stack Hub, applications can run across both environments, with sensitive data kept within prescribed country borders where required. Companies can build their applications on top of Azure Stack Hub and run them in the public cloud, if appropriate, or locally if the data falls under the regulation.
ODP is so far the only managed services provider in Oman to offer Azure Stack Hub. According to Dave, that is a big competitive differentiator. “This has not only helped us gain customers within Oman, but with our Azure Stack Hub being publicized not only by us, but by Microsoft as well, we are being approached by international companies that want to provide cloud service to Omani customers,” says Dave. “They want us to host their Azure workloads in Oman.”
For example, a software as a service (SaaS) provider that formerly could not reach Omani customers because of the data sovereignty limitation can now do so through ODP.
Omani customers already using the Azure public cloud can now use ODP to implement and manage applications locally as well. Through Azure Stack Hub, ODP provides those customers with both public cloud and local hosting. “Now, we can manage everything on behalf of the customer, so they can focus on their core business,” says Singh.
Fast and easy sales
Much of this new business came easily, according to Dave, because these organizations were already familiar with Azure. “Our customers wanted to use Azure but couldn’t because of data regulation. So once the pieces fell into place with Azure Stack Hub, our sales cycle shrank by half. Without much effort on our part, customers just bought these services. It was that easy.”
ODP has used the automation of Azure Stack Hub to improve its bottom line, cutting its costs by more than half (52 percent) and the time to deploy by 75 percent, according to Dave.
“It takes less effort and less time to implement an environment―be it a complete datacenter or particular applications―because Azure Stack Hub is ready with services,” Dave says. ODP’s technical team is particularly happy with the ease of deployment. “Onboarding customers to other platforms is a longer, more complex process,” he says.
Beyond the increase in business, ODP sees Azure Stack Hub as a way to advance its mission of furthering Oman’s digital transformation, giving more customers access to the advantages, innovations, and cost savings of cloud technology while helping ensure adherence to Oman’s data regulation. “The introduction of world-leading cloud solutions in Oman will be welcomed by both multinational companies as well as foreign direct investors,” says Al Wahaibi.
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“This has not only helped us gain customers within Oman, but with our Azure Stack Hub being publicized not only by us, but by Microsoft as well, we are being approached by international companies that want to provide cloud service to Omani customers.”
Santosh Dave, Business Channel Manager, Oman Data Park
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