UNCOVERING THE LAYERS
Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon.com, on
stage discussing AWS’s opening of the
new Bahrain region
Government organisations are also working
with AWS to lower costs and better
serve citizens in the region. The Bahrain
THE LAUNCH
OF THE NEW
AWS REGION
IN BAHRAIN
IS ALLOWING
PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE SECTOR
ORGANISATIONS
TO REALISE THE
FULL POTENTIAL
OF THE CLOUD.
64
Issue 08
Information and eGovernment Authority
(iGA) is responsible for ICT procurement for
the Bahrain government and is leading the
government’s migration project to support
the country’s Cloud First policy.
iGA’s Chief Executive, Mohammed Ali
AlQaed, said: “Bahrain is committed to
becoming a country in the cloud and we
will be able to accelerate our journey with
the launch of the AWS Region in Bahrain.
“By December of this year, we will
have 30% of all 72 government entities
migrated to AWS and by June 2020, we
expect to have most government data
centres shut down, while the rest are
minimised allowing us to focus resources
on projects that benefit our citizens
and dramatically improve the overall
availability and durability of government
applications and data.” An example of
a government entity that turned to the
agility and speed of AWS is Bahrain’s
National Bureau of Revenue (NBR),
which needed to quickly and efficiently
launch the country’s Value Added Tax
(VAT) system.
Rana Faqihi, Assistant Undersecretary
for Development and Revenue Policies
at Bahrain Ministry of Finance, said: “The
National Bureau of Revenue needed a
solution that would enable a seamless
VAT rollout, without delays and with the
highest levels of security. By launching
SAP S/4 Hana on AWS, the NBR was able
to go to market in just under two months
while lowering costs by 40%.
“Eliminating the need to manage IT
infrastructure allowed us to focus on
successfully reaching an important
milestone in Bahrain’s economic
development. The launch of the new AWS
Region in Bahrain is allowing public and
private sector organisations to realise the
full potential of the cloud.” ◊
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