Saudi Telecom

Saudi Arabia’s Largest Telco Chooses Sun to Improve IT Efficiencies and Reduce TCO with Server Consolidation Project

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is the largest service provider operating both mobile and fixed line businesses in Saudi Arabia. STC is the largest telecommunications company in the Middle East with more than 13 million mobile subscribers and 2.5 million Internet subscribers.

Customer Challenges

Consolidate and centralize IT resources for greater efficiency, lower costs and flexible expansion
Reduce TCO for current and future server infrastructure
Protect investments while minimizing IT investment risks
Improve performance and availability of critical systems for improved customer service

Solution

STC chose Sun to provide hardware, software and services for a major server consolidation and centralization project.

Business Results

Establish future-proof technology foundation for consolidation and expansion
Reduce server infrastructure TCO
Improve application availability and reduce downtime
Integrate smoothly with existing systems
Protect investments and minimize technology risk

Products and Services

Story Details

With Saudi mobile phone usage increasing by 30 percent per year, and with handset penetration in the region still below the international average, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is looking forward to continued business growth. At the same time, the challenges facing Saudi Arabia's incumbent telco increased when the government opened the market to competition in 2004 and a third Global Systems for Mobile Services (GSM) provider entered the market in 2007.

STC is preparing for the future by working closely with Sun Microsystems to adapt its IT infrastructure for continued, cost-effective growth and improved business agility. Building on a strong relationship, STC has chosen Sun as a principal vendor for its server consolidation and centralization project. In this role, Sun will serve the Middle East’s largest telecommunications company as a major source for server hardware, software, professional services and technical support.

" Sun Microsystems and STC are no strangers to one another. We have relied on Sun for most of our OSS and GSM networks and services over the last few years and Sun was the first to work with STC on an end-to-end server consolidation strategy and execution. "

— Mr. Ibrahim Al Dhobaie, Vice-President, Saudi Telecom

The project consolidates STC’s mission-critical GSM, Business Support Systems (BSS), Operational Support Systems (OSS), multiple network management applications, and Oracle databases on Sun Fire E25 servers with UltraSPARC IV+ processors running the Solaris 10 Operating System.

Combining High Availability with Carrier-grade Reliability
The Sun servers and system software will provide STC with a secure, scalable and 24X7 infrastructure on which it can add reliable new services as the market grows. The Solaris 10 Operating System gives STC carrier-grade reliability, security and performance, as well as advanced management tools such as Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTRace), which enables real-time application debugging. STC is also planning to use Solaris 10 Containers technology to gain additional benefit from its consolidation strategy and further reduce TCO.

STC is also deploying the Sun Management Center agent for fault monitoring and alarm notification for its application and database servers. In addition, Sun N1 Provisioning System software will allow STC administrators to rapidly provision operating systems, J2EE applications, Web servers and databases across heterogeneous systems.

Delivering Customized Services
In conjunction with the consolidation project, Sun is providing STC with customized offerings from Sun Professional Services. Much of the application readiness and enterprise installation work will be carried out in Sun’s factory by the Sun Customer Ready program to speed implementation times. By leveraging the Customer Ready program to perform most of the required system configuration and installation work at the factory prior to delivery, Saudi Telecom is minimizing the risks of implementation issues on site and speeding installation by several days. STC is also using specialized Sun implementation services to configure the Sun Fire servers and Sun Cluster 3.1 software for high availability.

Minimizing Risks and Protecting Investments
STC’s goals for the project include the establishment of a flexible, scalable infrastructure for growth that will reduce TCO for the present and future. Sun’s high-performance and high-availability technologies will ensure reliable and high-quality services for customers, even as business rapidly expands. Sun’s open architecture and commitment to binary compatibility between versions of Solaris will help STC minimize technology risks while protecting its existing investments.