Etisalat and Musanada sign MoU for the Abu Dhabi Government Network (ADNET)

Etisalat and Musanada sign MoU for the Abu Dhabi Government Network (ADNET)

ADNET will provide highly secure and reliable connections between all of Abu Dhabi’s governmental entities.

June 1, 2010 9:40 by Rasha Reslan

Abu Dhabi, 31 May 2010: As part of Abu Dhabi’s e-government service initiative, Etisalat and Abu Dhabi General Services “Musanada”, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to establish a government-wide network (ADNET) that will provide highly secure and reliable connections between all of Abu Dhabi’s governmental entities. Signing the MoU were Musanada Chief Executive Officer, H.E Mohamed Al-Fahed Al-Mehairi and Etisalat’s Senior Vice President – Enterprise Solutions, Abdullah Hashim.

The ADNET MoU signed at a ceremony held on the Musanada premises in Abu Dhabi marked the soft launch of ADNET and the completion of the implementation of the network infrastructure and the establishment of a 24×7 Network Operations Centre (NOC).

The ADNET Implementation Programme’, managed by Musanada and led by Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC), is a strategic eGovernment initiative that will deliver a shared government network for Abu Dhabi entities and will provide a cost-effective and secure connectivity to shared government services. This is an important step towards consistent services across all government entities with service level agreements that will drive service performance.

The MoU signing with Etisalat demonstrates Musanada’s commitment for establishing a Master Services Agreement across the core services that will be provided by Etisalat, namely: Managed WAN and Router Services, Internet over Ethernet and Connectivity between Data Centers.

At the ceremony, H.E. Mohamed Al Mehairi, CEO of Musanada said, “The commitment, creative thinking and hard work from everyone involved (Etisalat, ADSIC and Musanada) has enabled us to achieve this important milestone and in turn, supporting this exceptional government to achieve its 2030 vision whose ultimate goal is to deliver world class services to the citizens of Abu Dhabi. I commend the ADNET team for their efforts in this achievement. The value of ADNET will be realized once all entities are migrated and accessing shared services through the platform”.

Executive Director of Technology Services at Musanada, Dr. Mahir Nayfeh, commented, “The soft launch is a significant milestone for ADNet. The focus of the project team is now set on the rollout of ADNET to government entities and supporting existing customers”.

Following the soft launch, ADSIC is the first government entity to be migrated to ADNET, and consequently, more than 100 government entities are planned for migration during 2010 and 2011.

Isam Omran, Musanada’s Senior Programme Delivery Manager for ADNET announced that the service is now officially live with ADSIC as its first customer and that the 24/7 Network Operations Centre located in Mohamed Bin Zayed City is also ready to take calls for Service Requests or Incidents. Preparation is firmly underway for the migration of ADAA, FDF and GSEC over the next few weeks”.

ADNET is based on Abu Dhabi’s vision of providing world class government services, and to ensure its readiness to provide e-Gov services, Etisalat will contribute in building an infrastructure that will be a critical link between the various government services and end-users (individuals, businesses, governmental entities and government employees), thus creating a fundamental foundation for all e-government initiatives.

According to Abdullah Hashim, Sr. Vice President / Business Solutions, Etisalat, “In line with the 2030 vision, the Abu Dhabi Government is rapidly making advances in using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance service delivery. As the region’s leading telecom solutions provider, Etisalat is proud to be partnering the Government in its ADNET initiative and supporting its progress.”

“By leveraging Etisalat’s leading edge technology, this initiative will boost government efficiency and improve delivery of citizen services, addressing important societal challenges and empowering individual organizations, governments and citizens to reach their full potential through technology. This will not only make the lives of Abu Dhabi residents easier by reducing time taken to deliver services, improving internal processes and providing tangible benefits, but will also enhance customer satisfaction”, Hashim further added.