Bexprt delivers AWS Disaster Recovery Solution for Abdulrehman Algosaibi, leading healthcare provider, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment supplier in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Executive summary
As part of their ISO 27001 project, Abdulrehman Algosaibi identified that they needed to implement a Disaster Recovery plan for thirteen on-premise servers. A secondary on-premise DR site was considered, but assessed as too costly and time-consuming to deploy, so the decision was made to use the cloud; AWS was selected and Bexprt engaged.
Bexprt proposed a number of options, with key features, advantages, and costs identified; AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery was selected, utilizing the AWS Pilot Light strategy.
Following a successful Proof of Concept, Abdulrehman Algosaibi decided to move ahead with the full DR project; the team was very satisfied with the results, ISO compliance, and on-target costs. Subsequently, further new projects have been initiated, including the migration of competitor cloud workloads to AWS.
About the client
Founded in 1944, Abdulrehman Algosaibi is the leading healthcare provider, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment supplier in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
They have a long history of supporting their partners, clients, and employees to meet their duties as a healthcare provider, ensuring that patients receive the best care possible.
The challenge & cloud opportunity
The team at Abdulrehman Algosaibi wanted to swiftly deploy a Disaster Recovery solution to ensure ISO 27001 compliance for on-premise servers, in a tight timescale.
This would be the first cloud project for Abdulrehman Algosaibi, a technical learning curve.
The solution & services used
Bexprt workshops: full ISO compliance requirements understood, as well as business expectations and anticipated future needs.
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery was selected, utilizing the AWS Pilot Light strategy.
AWS DataSync used to replicate native backups taken for legacy servers
Optimized Disaster Recovery Solution
The four AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery strategies are illustrated below.
Abdulrehman Algosaibi selected AWS Pilot Light strategy: data is transferred from the primary on-premise servers to AWS continuously, but without running any servers on the AWS DR region.
AWS DataSync used to replicate native backups taken for legacy servers, to an AWS S3 Bucket.
The results & benefits
Disaster Recovery Solution successfully deployed in record time to achieve the clients’ ISO project timelines.
AWS Pilot Light configured to help achieve RTO and RPO of 10’s of minutes.
Very successful Disaster Recovery project and ISO 27001 compliance have given the client the experience and confidence to move forward with significant further cloud migrations.
Abdulrehman Algosaibi & Saudi Cloud Summit
In a Panel Discussion at the Saudi Cloud Summit 2023, Abdallah Ibrahim Amin, Abdulrehman Algosaibi Infrastructure Manager, joined Mohamed Laimon, AWS Senior Partner Development Manager for Saudi Arabia & Bahrain on stage with Ghaith Hamzah Bexprt Business Development Manager to discuss the project. As well as describing the successful Disaster Recovery project, the team discussed other project benefits.
Often, Disaster Recovery solutions are the first experience a business has of migrating to the cloud. As Abdulrehman Algosaibi experienced, this first DR project was the start of a fruitful learning journey about the cloud, and new and more efficient ways of working. Further cloud projects are now underway at Abdulrehman Algosaibi with Bexprt and AWS, and substantial benefits are already being delivered.
“When we started this project the team at Abdulrehman Algosaibi had limited experience of cloud solutions. Working with Bexprt, we really benefitted from their expertise and knowledge; they guided us through the whole process, answering all our questions, and ensuring we understood the options, benefits and features of different solutions. The Bexprt team took care to understand all of our current use cases, and ISO requirements, as well as to consider future needs. The AWS Pilot Light strategy was successfully implemented, and the ISO compliance team are confident in the solution. This first AWS cloud project has been so successful that, thanks to the Bexprt team, we are now moving ahead with further significant cloud migration projects.”
If you would like to know more about the Saudi Cloud Summit, and other events we run, please get in touch or check out the Events page.
If your organization needs assistance to digitally transform your processes, or migrate to the cloud, get in touch. We’re always happy to have an informal exploratory conversation. hello@bexprt.com
UK-headquartered technology company, Bexprt, opened its first international subsidiary and regional office in Riyadh one year ago. In doing so, Bexprt took a decisive move into public cloud services and AI, and enhanced the local support for its existing public and commercial clients in the region. With significant investment and dedication, the team has achieved many accolades in the last 12 months, including AWS Reseller in 6 countries for the Commercial and Public Sectors, AWS Advanced Partner Tier Status, Google Cloud Partner and Foundation Partner for the Saudi Arabia Region launch, as well as a UK Government Export Award.
Now, 1 year later, Bexprt CEO and Founder Mo Hamdy reflects on the Riyadh journey, celebrates team successes to date, and shares insights into what comes next.
How it started: why did Bexprt open a new company in Riyadh?
UK technology company, Bexprt, opened its first international subsidiary and regional office in Riyadh one year ago, in December 2022, and established a Bexprt team focused on public cloud services and AI technologies. Saudi Arabia is the UK’s largest trading partner in the Gulf Region, and the decision to open the first Bexprt overseas subsidiary there, Bexprt International Company for Information Technology LLC, was both bold and clear. Mo Hamdy, Bexprt CEO and Founder shares more.
Vision 2030 & the opportunity for UK international trade
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to deliver a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation has unlocked significant opportunities for growth and investment. Saudi Arabia is a future-forward economy, and with the whole nation engaged in the national strategy, they are moving very swiftly. This creates considerable untapped potential and unique business opportunities. When assessing where to open our first subsidiary in the MEA region, as I said last year, it just had to be in Saudi.”
Source: UK Government Office for National Statistics (ONS) UK trade in services, service type by partner country, non-seasonally adjusted (1) (2)
Last updated: July 2023.
“In opening the new business in Riyadh, we confirmed our commitment to existing clients, partners, and staff in the Kingdom and across the region. Saudi is the UK’s largest trading partner in the Middle East, our intention and plan was to rapidly accelerate the number of clients we work with in the region and to deliver innovative, sustainable, and cost-optimized solutions.”
How it’s going: Bexprt’s first year in Saudi Arabia
After opening the office in December 2022, just 6 weeks later, Bexprt achieved AWS Select Tier Service Partner status, becoming the fastest regional partner to achieve this status. This key milestone enabled the local Bexprt team to accelerate AWS cloud projects with clients, and was the fast start the business needed ahead of LEAP in Riyadh, the Davos of the technology world.
Bexprt’s Riyadh & cloud-centric achievements over the last 12 months
Further accolades from both AWS and Google Cloud during the year, in addition to professional certificates for the staff in Riyadh, acknowledged the accelerated business growth and achievements in expertise, experience and professional recognition. In 2023, the first year of activity in Saudi Arabia, the Bexprt team delivered and completed 21 cloud projects in the Kingdom, and more across the Region, with a very significant number of local projects in the pipeline.
Phenomenal speed of digital transformation in Saudi Arabia
“It has been a very exciting year for the Bexprt team in Riyadh, and things have moved at a very fast pace. The market and hyperscalers are moving very fast locally, and the Bexprt team has really stepped up to the challenge. We’ve learned swiftly about the local market and dynamics, and our local staff have really demonstrated their deep understanding of the advanced nature of our clients’ needs. We now have a local team of 13 skilled, qualified and experienced staff. We are continuing to invest in the team, competence development and enhanced capabilities, and more recruitment is underway.”
“Vision 2030 is being applied with a very high priority by everyone we work with in Saudi. The fast pace at which businesses and organization are accelerating their digital transformation and business practices is phenomenal, and the appetite that people have for technological change is quite breathtaking.”
Above, top row: Bexprt offices in Riyadh Park. Bottom row: views across Riyadh city.
Market demand for AI-driven solutions
“Bexprt is focussed on working with hyper scalers AWS and Google Cloud in the market here. The clients we work with are really motivated by moving to the public cloud, and the ability to access and take advantage of not only “typical” cloud use cases, like resilience and disaster recovery for example, but we also have a lot of clients who come to us, motivated to migrate to the public cloud to gain access to the AI and Gen-AI capabilities this enables.”
“We are finding that, whilst some clients come to us wanting us to guide them from step 1 of applying AI, increasingly, our clients have already thought about how they might apply Gen-AI to help their organizations, and they initiate the conversation with us with a list of initial use cases they have identified that they want to address.”
LEAP 2023, clockwise from top left to right: Bexprt and AWS teams celebrate achieving Partner Select status with the UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the Department for Business & Trade Team. Anver Vanker, AWS Manager, Solution Architect, Abdulrahman Alshaker, AWS Territory Manager, Ayman Eltohamy, AWS Head of SMBs MENA & Turkey, Mohammed Laimon, AWS Partner Development Manager KSA, Mohamed Hamdy, Bexprt Founder & CEO, His Excellency UK Ambassador to KSA Neil Crompton, Kabir Rahman, COO & Head of Trade, British Embassy Riyadh, Gwen Edwards, Bexprt CMO.
Bottom left: His Excellency UK Ambassador to KSA Neil Crompton and Kabir Rahman, COO & Head of Trade, British Embassy Riyadh, talk with Bexprt CEO Mo Hamdy.Find LEAP 2023 recap here.
Local, talented Bexprt team
“In the last year, we’ve recruited and developed a very smart local team in Riyadh, from scratch. This team is very motivated by the projects and technologies they have access to, and have the drive to be a part of delivering Vision 2030 for the Kingdom.”
“Investing time and effort in the team is reciprocal. We all have a lot to learn in this rapidly evolving tech-scape. For those willing to dive in, there are big, exciting projects to become involved with, working with massive brands, and established, highly reputable companies early on in their career. We’re recruiting currently, so if you’re interested in joining the Bexprt team, take a look at the Careers section of the website, and follow Bexprt on LinkedIn for future announcements.”
Showcasing local capabilities and success at the Saudi Cloud Summit
“This energy, passion, technological evolution, and market pace encouraged us to run the Saudi Cloud Summit in October. We felt this was the level of gathering senior Cx-level Executives, from key companies in the region here deserved. The event, run in partnership with AWS, enabled us to provide access to Senior AWS Executives and Global Experts, and to deliver a day of briefings focussed on the latest cloud and AI technologies and how they can be applied locally, and showcase local customers who are already using them.”
Above: images from Saudi Cloud Summit 2023, with Keynote Speaker, Yasser Hassan, Regional General Manager, AWS Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. Find more here.
New Bexprt AI solutions developed and deployed in Saudi in 2023
“As well as setting up the business in Riyadh, recruiting a strong young local team, achieving business accolades, and successfully deploying projects with major local businesses, we’ve also developed and launched new Bexprt solutions in 2023! We’ve delivered two new AI and automation solutions, developed in-house, addressing market needs in the Gen-AI and resilience space: Bextract™ and Bex-DR™. Both solutions are commercially deployed with Saudi, UK and Ireland clients, and we fully intend to continue the development of more AI-driven solutions like this, to address specific client use cases and market ambitions.”
“We work carefully to understand and fulfill tier 1 customer needs, clients who are not looking for shift and lift type, cut-and-paste solutions, but instead are seeking genuine solutions to address their very specific use cases. AI solutions are key to being able to rapidly develop and deploy tailored capability, and we’re investing significantly in the Bexprt R&D team to make it even stronger and extend its capability.”
Above: images from the Google Cloud Saudi Arabia Region Launch, 15th November 2023. Read more about Google Cloud & Bexprt, and see the Bexprt LinkedIn post from the event.
Clockwise, left to right: Mo with Adly Amin, Google Cloud Senior Architect. Bexprt team Yousef, Ghaith and Abdulrhman, plus outside the Saraj with Gwen. Gwen, Mo and Ghaith with Bader Almadi, Google Cloud General Manager for Saudi Arabia. Mo with Lionel Touati, Google Cloud Head of Partner Engineering EMEA South. Mo with Mohamed Shaaban Google Cloud Partner Development Manager, and Ghassan Qobrosi, Google Cloud Customer Engineer, and Ghaith. Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO delivered the keynote in person – shown here with all regional partner logos, including Bexprt.
What next? Bexprt goals and ambitions for 2024 in Saudi Arabia
“2023 has been a very successful year for Bexprt. Thank you to all our clients, Partners and the Bexprt Team for the successes we have achieved together – curiosity, expertise and skill will enable us to grow and achieve even more together in 2024.”
“Looking ahead to the next 12 months, we intend to work even more closely with our partners and enable even greater access to advanced capabilities for our clients.”
“We’ll be deploying more and more projects with leverage Gen-AI, and increasing the local team with those specific skills locally, as well as expanding the expertise of the Cloud Team. Our local office in Riyadh is setup to enable significant business growth next year.”
“Now, we are celebrating our first anniversary of the Riyadh company, and one year in cloud, but we also celebrated our 5th year in business in March 2023. Our earlier business success was driven by our telco-cloud and cyber-security teams. Over the last few months, we have secured significant new telecom contracts in Saudi Arabia, and expanded existing telecom projects, and as a result, we are increasing the investment in our Saudi-based team.”
Above, from left, clockwise: Mo Hamdy, Gwen Edwards, Mahmoud El Zayet outside the UK HQ. Ask Bexprt event, Riyadh June 2023. Gwen participates in a panel discussion at GSMA MWC23 Barcelona with Deloitte, UK Government Department for Business & Trade, and Urban XR. Mo talks with UK Government Minister for Industry and Economic Security, Nusrat Ghani MP, and below with Gwen at the same UK Government Export event at Banqueting House, London. Gwen talks with Bexprt colleagues Mahmoud and Okasha in the UK office. Centre bottom row: part of the Bexprt team celebrates successful client milestones together, left to right, Ahmed Nassar, Waleed Magdy, Mahmoud El Kerdany, Zaky Fetoh, Mo Hamdy, Mohamed El-Kerdany, Nour El-Din Samir.
Commitment, energy, expertise and skill
“In 2024, Bexprt will invest and grow our teams in the Kingdom, and this demonstrates our clear commitment to the country, clients, and projects we undertake here. We are delighted that our skilled, expert team has achieved so much success over the last 12 months in Saudi Arabia, working with high energy, and closely with our partners locally to enhance our clients’ capabilities. As a UK-headquartered technology business, the market in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Region is a very exciting, energized place to be working.”
“We’re really excited about what we can achieve, for our public cloud and telco cloud clients in 2024 – which just leaves one key question…..
We’re ready to travel together, how can we help you?”
Bexprt delivers AWS Disaster Recovery Solution for Saudi Arabian-based fire, safety, and security company, Al Kurdi Trading & Contracting Co.
Executive summary
Al Kurdi use an OpenSource ERP and CRM solution. After attending an “Ask Bexprt” event on AWS Resilience and Disaster Recovery, Al Kurdi requested support from Bexprt to implement an AWS Disaster Recovery (DR) solution. Bexprt proposed multiple DR options with costs for Al Kurdi to consider. The AWS Pilot Light strategy was selected and successfully implemented, following AWS Best Practices.
About the client
Al Kurdi Trading & Contracting Company provides fire, safety, room environment monitoring, uninterruptable power supplies and security solutions, with a complete range of services including design, supply, installation, testing & commissioning, and after-sales services. Founded in 1979, Al Kurdi operates across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The challenge & cloud opportunity
Al Kurdi approached Bexprt seeking an AWS Disaster Recovery solution. At the start of the project, Bexprt identified, documented, and addressed a number of security enhancements. With no previous Disaster Recovery experience, automated alarms and documentation were a key part of the deliverables for the client.
The solution & services used
The AWS Pilot Light strategy was selected for Disaster Recovery, with Amazon Cloud Watch for automated alarms.
AWS Virtual Private Cloud and AWS Identity & Access Management form part of the security features.
A different AWS Region was utilized to optimize for business continuity and high availability.
DR process documentation, and operational instructions were provided.
Ensuring key business systems and data remains safe
Al Kurdi use an OpenSource ERP and CRM solution, and this forms a vital part of their business management systems, including CRM, project documentation, invoicing and support ticketing.
The Al Kurdi team attended an “Ask Bexprt” event in Riyadh, where they were able to hear experts from AWS and Bexprt provide updates about AWS Resilience and Disaster Recovery best practices, options and features. After the workshop, Al Kurdi requested a more detailed meeting with the Bexprt team, to privately discuss their requirements.
Bexprt proposed multiple AWS Disaster Recovery options, with costs for Al Kurdi to consider, and the AWS Pilot Light strategy was selected.
To optimize the Disaster Recovery architecture, a different AWS Region was utilized, thereby ensuring business continuity and high availability.
The results & benefits
The client now has a secure solution for their business-critical ERP and CRM solution, and an AWS Disaster Recovery solution that follows AWS Best Practices.
“The Bexprt team provided a very comprehensive assessment of our technology landscape, and implemented security enhancements before commencing the AWS Disaster Recovery work.
“Bexprt took the time to answer all the Disaster Recovery queries the Al Kurdi team had, and provided various options for us to consider. They have worked with care to understand our needs and use cases, and provided all the documentation we requested.
“We now have a very comprehensive DR solution in place, which is absolutely vital for such business-critical systems. I’m very glad that we attended the Ask Bexprt event!”
If you would like to know more about the “Ask Bexprt” informal, in-person roundtable events we hold, and other events we run, please get in touch or check out the Events page.
If your organization needs assistance to digitally transform your processes, or migrate to the cloud, get in touch. We’re always happy to have an informal exploratory conversation. hello@bexprt.com
Curious to know more about how moving to the cloud can reduce your carbon footprint?
Sustainability was a key element of AWS CTO Dr Werner Vogels’ keynote at AWS re:Invent 2023 last week.
In describing his Frugal Architect approach, he proposed that cost and sustainability should be treated as non-functional requirements, alongside security, compliance and availability.
Further, that the resources used in cloud computing can be a good approximation for the carbon footprint of the solution, making it an essential factor in building sustainable architectures.
The Bexprt team can help you assess your technology landscape and identify optimizations.
And if you need hard data, online tools from our Cloud Partners will help you to,
📍Accurately measure your cloud-related carbon footprint
To mark the one-year anniversary of the Partnership Agreement between Bexprt and AWS, Gwen Edwards, Bexprt CMO, and Mahmoud ElZayet, Director of Cloud, share their thoughts on the key milestones achieved together with AWS over the last 12 months.
“Bexprt’s Partnership with AWS formally started one year ago, in November 2022. It has been a hugely significant year for the Bexprt team and the business, as we expanded our capabilities from telco and telco cloud, into working with hyperscalers directly.
“Choosing to partner with AWS, the world’s leading cloud provider, with over 32% of the global market, was tightly interwoven with the decision to open a business in Riyadh. To be one of the businesses working to help deliver the Vision 2030 digital transformation capabilities, in a market that is growing exponentially, and a country that is rapidly changing, is very exciting and provides a lot of commercial and innovation opportunities. Opening a business in Saudi Arabia has enabled us to recruit a strong local team, with a deep understanding of the local market and technologies, able to work directly with local businesses in the Kingdom.
“In starting the journey with AWS, we found that their onboarding processes were very comprehensive and straightforward, and really optimized. The AWS Partner Team worked very closely with our team to ensure we were quickly up to speed and integrated into their systems.
“With local AWS regional support, plus direct access to the AWS global teams, we have been able to ensure that our customers across the EMEA region have access to the full breadth of AWS capabilities. Together, we have developed joint business plans aligned with our business targets, and made joint investments in our go to market plans for aligned target addressable markets – the strong support of AWS Marketing is very much appreciated.
“From a technical perspective, AWS has provided us with access to technologies that have enabled us to accelerate the development of our own AI and Generative AI solutions, so that we can deliver really innovative solutions to our customers, aligned with their use cases, building on AWS capabilities.
“The first year of partnership has seen Bexprt move rapidly from being an AWS Select Tier Service Partner, to achieving Amazon RDS Service Delivery Partner, AWS Solution Provider Partner (Reseller), AWS Advanced Partner, and most recently, graduating from the AWS Accelerated Partner Delivery Program. And, there is much more in the pipeline!
“This one-year anniversary is a good time to say a big thank you to the AWS Partner Team, and everyone at AWS who has helped us on this journey. We look forward to achieving even more in our second year of working together!”
Saudi Cloud Summit 2023: Organized by Bexprt, Powered by AWS. Some of the Bexprt and AWS team, left to right,
Mohammed Laimon, AWS Senior Partner Development Manager Saudi Arabia & Bahrain.
Abdulaziz Al Meer, AWS Head of Public Sector Partners Saudi Arabia & Bahrain.
Saudi Cloud Summit 2023 ◦ Organized by Bexprt, powered by AWS
Recap, photos and 2024 plans.
“The Saudi Cloud Summit was an amazing experience for me personally, meeting plenty of CxOs from Governments, SMB, DNC and Unicorns, across vastly diversified range of industries, exchanging their experience of the Saudi Market.”
“I would like to thank all of the Bexprt Team for making such a great event happen and for the sponsorship of AWS with inspiring and insightful Keynote Speech from Yasser Hassan , AWS Regional General Manager, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. True partnership and teamwork in action.”
“Very fruitful sessions from all Bexprt and AWS speakers, covering Digital Transformation, the Saudi 2030 vision and power of data, how to make use of data to take informative decisions, seeing amazing use cases from AWS about Analytics and AI, and launching both Bexprt Advanced IDP (#Bextract™) over Amazon Bedrock and Bex-DR™ Resilience Automation Tool – both with successful live demos!”
Held on Tuesday 10th October 2023, at the Hilton Hotel, Riyadh, the inaugural Saudi Cloud Summit brought together CxOs and Senior Business Executives across all sectors, and enabled attendees to optimize their access to cloud & AI expertise, and experience, in Saudi.
Those who joined us discovered vital cloud updates for Saudi Arabia, and enjoyed unrivalled networking opportunities.
This exclusive, closed-door, private and in-person-only meeting included,
The launch of 2x Bexprt solutions, Bextract™ Advanced Intelligent Document Processing, and Bex-DR™ Automated Disaster Recovery Testing, both with live demos
Keynote speech from Yasser Hassan, Regional General Manager, leading the Amazon Web Services (AWS) business in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey
Bexprt in the Kingdom ◦ A Saudi-centric business update, plus Bexprt solution launches, and announce new offers and incentives for the local market, from Founder & CEO Mo Hamdy from event organizer and co-host Bexprt
Fireside chat, with Abdulaziz Al Meer, AWS Head of Public Sector Partners, Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, and Mo Hamdy, Bexprt Founder & CEO
Strategic update from Ayman El-Tohamy, AWS Head of SMB, MENA & Turkey
The Bexprt team is grateful to all those who attended and made the inaugural event a huge success. Thank you for your energy and support!
Special 2023 thanks also to the teams behind the scenes: James, Jo and Lindy; Mel, Ruba, Nasser and their local teams.
Saudi Cloud Summit 2024
We are delighted to confirm that the plans are already underway at Bexprt HQ for #SaudiCloudsummit2024.
Reserve the date in your diary now: 10th October 2024, Riyadh.
We look forward to seeing you at Saudi Cloud Summit 2024!
If you would like to know more about future Bexprt events, please registerhere. For sponsorship and speaking opportunities please contact Bexprt CMO Gwen Edwards.
To discover more about Bexprt, or the new solutions Bextract and Bex-DR, please emailhello@bexprt.com
Upgrade Nuage VSP from version 5.4.1 to 20.10 R5 (major), for a Tier 1 Mobile Network Operator in the UK.
What is Nuage?
Nuage Networks from Nokia, Virtualized Services Platform[VSP] “is the industry leading network automation platform enabling a complete range of SDN, SD-WAN, and cloud solutions. VSP provides advanced network automation across networks and clouds of all sizes and architectures, from datacenter private clouds to large enterprise wide area networks (WANs) and some of the largest public clouds in the world. VSP enables both Virtualized Network Services (VNS) for SD-WAN and Virtualized Cloud Services (VCS) for SDN.”
Problem Statement
Customer was running a Nuage VSP release which was near to End of Life (EoL).
Bexprt were asked to upgrade the solution to the latest release as swiftly as possible.
Original version: 5.4.1
Target version: 20.10.R5
Challenges
Limited time (pre-production to be completed in 2 weeks)
Alignment of all stakeholders
Major upgrade
Minimum downtime
Service verification after a successful upgrade
Multiple nodes were unreachable remotely
High-level project plan
This Nuage VSP major upgrade involved the upgrade of multiple components.
Bexprt developed and managed the project execution plan.
VSD upgrade Method of Procedure (MOP) and restoration/roll-back plan prepared, discussed and agreed with the customer prior to execution.
Bexprt identified some discrepancies in the original deployment of the solution; a solution to resolve them was proposed and agreed with the customer.
Step 1: After the successful upgrade of VSDs (primary component), a 48-hour close-monitoring period was observed with zero issues.
Steps 2 to 6: On completion of the close-monitoring period, the remaining steps were undertaken and all other components were successfully upgraded.
Challenges overcome
Due to EoL time pressures, innovative approaches were needed to swiftly implement the project.
Major challenge: some components/nodes were unreachable remotely. Bexprt proposed reversing access to the nodes after upgrading to the latest release, whilst maintaining security. Details of mitigation, confidence, and time benefit were discussed with the client who accepted this creative solution.
Plan was successfully implemented and the connectivity of nodes was restored.
This approach saved a considerable amount of project time.
Great learning experience: optimizing project time, and alignment of stakeholders.
The results & benefits
Major Nuage upgrade completed on schedule, with minimum downtime.
How can Bexprt help?
If your business needs assistance working out how to transform your ICT processes, upgrade your systems, or migrate to the cloud, get in touch. We can assist your business with all elements of assessment, implementation, and upgrade to digitally transform your business.
We’re always happy to have an informal, exploratory conversation, email us at hello@bexprt.com
Mohamed Hamdy, Founder & CEO of Bexprt shares “A really big thank you to all our clients and strategic partners! We really appreciate everything we have achieved together over the last five years. Bexprt now operates in 16 countries, and we’ve quadrupled the turnover of the business.”
“I would also like to thank the fabulous Bexprt team that have delivered this success for the business. I believe that we have built a really world-class team – stay tuned for some really big team announcements in the weeks ahead!”
“Bexprt has significant expansion plans for 2023, and I’m excited to see what we can achieve in partnership together, globally, in the next five years.”
The Bexprt Team are excited to be at Biban Global! If you are a startup or small business who wants to know how to securely migrate to the cloud, or are curious about scaling or optimizing your current cloud spend, then come and ask Bexprt!
“Biban 2023: Saudi Arabia’s flagship SME forum returns to unite the world’s most innovative start-ups, entrepreneurs, and investors.
Biban… Fostering Tangible Opportunities
Welcome to Biban 2023, Saudi Arabia’s biggest SME and entrepreneurship forum. This is where the private and public sectors come together, under one roof, to share extraordinary ideas and profound experiences revolving around business and entrepreneurship. Here, we showcase innovations and breakthroughs, host talks and panel discussions, and hold workshops and competitions that inspire growth and embrace the culture of innovation. It’s a space that encourages dialogue and collaboration, filled to the brim with the most influential names in the industry (and from all over the world, no less). It’s where aspiring business minds come to their own, where existing businesses find investors, and where the greatest and latest business developments are revealed to the world. Join us and explore our nation’s thriving economic landscape; fertile land from which bright ideas and bold businesses grow and prosper, influencing a new generation of ambitious SMEs and start-ups. It’s an opportunity to establish meaningful, long-lasting relationships with industry leaders and decision-makers, learn new skills and gain valuable insight, and engage in high-power meetings, business accelerators, and incubators. In short, we’re fostering tangible opportunities. And Biban is where you capitalize on them.”
🗓 Thursday 9th – Monday 13th March, 4-11pm 📍Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center, KSA 🌐 Discover more, and register for free entry here
📧 To arrange a dedicated time to meet email hello@bexprt.com, or dm Ghaith Hamzah 𝗕𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗿𝘁 ◦ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 Business Consulting ◦ Cloud Consulting & Services ◦ ICT Professional Services ◦ Cyber Security Services
In this blog post, Ayman ElBetaway, Bexprt’s Core Networks Deployment Technical Lead, provides an overview of the legacy issues, and the digital path forward for businesses’ telephone systems.
How long will the legacy systems last?
Traditional analog telecommunications systems are nearing the end of their product lifecycles, and if your business has not yet upgraded, now is the time to decide how and when to replace it and head down a new, more viable path. In many countries, PSTN and ISDN lines can no longer be installed – for example, this is the case in much of the UK now, and existing UK copper connections will be switched off at or before the end of 2025. With deadlines looming, and significant technology and financial benefits, what is the alternative? Deploy Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), an Internet Protocol (IP)-based solution for voice – and the opportunities presented by VoIP are too great to be ignored.
Traditional fixed-line telephony
On March 10th, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the first voice call to his assistant Thomas Watson: “Mr Watson – come here – I want to see you”. Almost 147 years later, in many countries, traditional voice calls continue to be carried over copper cables between many homes and businesses.
The greatest challenge fixed-line telecom providers are facing is that their existing platforms are on the verge of being end-of-life. It has become increasingly challenging to obtain parts, and find vendors to support those legacy systems.
Enterprises have traditionally maintained separate networks for private data, voice and internet applications, which leads to high capital and operating expenses that were associated with maintaining, upgrading, and managing multiple networks.
Maintenance charges are high, requiring support staff and cabling systems.
Additionally, capacity expansion is a challenging problem and technically constrained by TDM (time-division multiplexing) used in traditional legacy fixed-line telephony.
VoIP evolution
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) are protocols that enable a voice or video call to be converted to data. VoIP software formats speech and video calls for transfer over a digital data network – via the internet, local, corporate, or mobile phone data networks. SIP creates a dedicated ‘data tunnel’ on the same computer networks so that VoIP and media streaming is handled efficiently with minimum errors and optimized quality.
Business benefits of VoIP
Creating new business revenues for the traditional telecom industry by providing cheaper rates.
Reducing the capex investment by avoiding purchasing hardware at each site.
Greater flexibility in call routing, plus additional features like handover from desk phone to mobile phone.
Flexibility in integration with VoIP applications, including MS Teams and Skype for Business.
Rapidly increasing capacity of SIP trunks, removing any business growth constraints.
While there are demonstrable advantages, VoIP for business also carries some risks. These are some examples for the most common VoIP security risks that businesses should be aware of,
DoS & DDoS attacks
Embedded Malware
Spam Over IP Telephony (SPIT)
Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS)
Toll Fraud.
Building up & bridging out
To experience a seamless migration from legacy TDM to IP, businesses must embark on a methodical and deliberate network evolution.
The SBC (Session Border Controller) is a call processing network element located topologically at the edge of a service provider or enterprise network to protect VoIP networks, as well as provide call management functionalities. The main protocol used is SIP, the current industry standard. The SBC acts as a SIP back-to-back user agent.
SBC provides,
Session management (call routing)
Edge security (e.g. topology hiding and signaling, firewall)
Policy enforcement
Signaling and media interworking (normalisation, transcoding)
Advanced real-time session monitoring.
Seeking a more radical revolution?
If your office footprint and staff working patterns have changed significantly over recent years, you might be considering a more radical approach, and be thinking about completely removing your fixed line phones and data cables. This very much depends on your business use cases – for example, it is unlikely to be suitable for a call centre! Some companies with simpler telephony needs have moved everything across to mobile networks, especially with the rollout and speeds achievable on 5G. This “mobile network only” approach has flexibility benefits, but might not suit heavy data network usage, or use cases with high-availability needs – an “all-mobile” revolution needs careful consideration and capacity assessment. We always recommend that a thorough understanding of use cases must first be undertaken, before looking at digital transformation options!
How can Bexprt help?
If your business needs assistance working out how to evolve legacy phone and data systems, get in touch. We can assist your business with all elements of assessment, implementation and upgrade to evolve your legacy network to VoIP and SIP, or help you in considering an all mobile-network revolution.
We’re always happy to have an informal, exploratory conversation, email us at hello@bexprt.com
The Bexprt team are excited to be at MWC in Barcelona at the end of February.
Our team are happy to talk all things cloud, and have particular expertise in eCommerce, migration, resiliency and disaster recovery. To arrange to meet and discuss how Bexprt can accelerate delivery of your cloud ambitions and solve your business needs, please get in touch! hello@bexprt.com
📍GSMA Mobile World Congress, Fira Gran Via, Barcelona 🗓 Monday 27th February – Thursday 2nd March 2023
🌐Discover more about #MWC23, and register for access, here.
The past decade has witnessed an increased empowerment of developers: from running what they build, to selecting their own microservices technology, through to self-serviced infrastructure requests. This DevOps-centric movement has brought with it lots of benefits to the software used daily, including more frequent releases and higher-quality apps. Yet, it has also created one interesting problem: duplicated efforts.
Decentralized microservices teams often solve similar automation, security, and compute problems. It is common within a single organization to see multiple development teams building their own versions of SSL certificate generation, container image scanning, or cloud service configuration.
This inefficiency has pushed many organizations in the past few years to shift their focus to Platform Engineering: a productization of developer platforms offered as a self-service.
It is not surprising then to see ‘Platform Engineering’ on Gartner’s top 10 strategic trends for 2023. Developers can now consume “platform as a service”. For example, App Director is a tool that accelerates the developer’s journey in building and shipping modern software on Kubernetes. Without prior knowledge, developers can deploy solutions to any cloud with best practices incorporated. The developer experience is significantly simplified enabling developers to focus on what they do best: quickly shipping high-quality software.
But at what size should an organization adopt “Platform Engineering”? And what if it has just started adopting DevOps?
First, let’s rethink the phrase ‘Platform Engineering’. It’s an ‘Internal Developer Platform’. It’s a platform that simplifies developers’ adoption of technology. Ideally, it’s not for a single team of developers. But the size of your dev org is not the only metric to use when assessing if a switch to this approach is worthwhile – Platform Engineering delivers broader business benefits even to small dev orgs. Listen to your developers! Are they duplicating efforts? Are they having to adopt and deeply learn a varied set of tools (Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform…etc.)? Could they benefit from abstraction? Could a set of self-service tools abstract these challenges and provide a ‘paved road’ or ‘Golden Path’?
Whether you need help in assessing or boosting your developer productivity, Bexprt can help – please get in touch!
We’re always happy to have an informal, exploratory conversation. hello@bexprt.com
Bexprt are thrilled to achieve AWS Select Tier Services Partner status in the AWS Partner Network, in record time!
“Yesterday, Bexprt became the fastest regional partner to achieve this status,” shared Mo Hamdy, Bexprt Founder & MD. “I would like to thank the Bexprt team and our AWS colleagues for their commitment and hard work in achieving this together, the first of many big milestones to come!”
“If you are attending LEAP in Riyadh at the start of February, the Bexprt team is one of a small handful of Partners chosen to be a part of the AWS stand – we would be delighted to meet you there in Hall 1, D30.”
If you would like to know more about how Bexprt can enable your business with AWS, please get in touch – we’re always happy to have an informal, exploratory conversation. hello@bexprt.com
Impressive news for our Middle East customers to remain focused on their business, AWS has just announced the availability of AWS Shield in the UAE region.
As a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service, AWS Shield safeguards applications running on AWS. It can protect applications from the most sophisticated DDoS attacks, including those that target the application and network layers by adopting an always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations to minimize application downtime and latency.
Bexprt is pleased to provide all the needed support required by our customers to,
Reduce operational costs: by reducing the need for manual intervention during DDoS attacks.
Focus on secure business growth and scalability: By quickly scaling the application’s protection as needed in order to respond to changing traffic patterns or attack volumes.
If you would like to know more about how Bexprt can enable your business with AWS Shield, please get in touch – we’re always happy to have an informal, exploratory conversation. hello@bexprt.com
According to their comprehensive report “The future of e-commerce in the Middle East and North Africa: examining the key drivers of growth”, Medialinks predicts that the Middle East eCommerce market is estimated to grow with a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent in 2023 as compared to 2021. Meanwhile, Frost & Sullivan estimated the Middle East eCommerce market will reach $20 billion in 2023. This growth is being driven by increasing internet penetration (over 200 million by 2023), growing use of digital payment methods, and a growing preference for online shopping among consumers (mobile commerce or m-commerce is set to play a significant role in the eCommerce and digital marketing space in 2023).
Such a promising forecast for 2023 eCommerce businesses in the Middle East, encouraged many entrepreneurs to build their own eCommerce startups to aggressively compete with big players in this domain. Nevertheless, there are many challenges that need to be taken into consideration to ensure sustainable growth.
One of these challenges is the expected recession in 2023. According to Forbes there is a chance of 70% that the global economy is expected to slow down due to a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainties. This could have an impact on consumer spending and could lead to more cost reductions for eCommerce platforms to maintain competing prices for online products and services.
Mitigating risk
To mitigate such a risk, entrepreneurs should focus on leveraging cloud-based eCommerce platforms that are hosted on reliable cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platforms (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud etc. Cloud-based eCommerce platforms offer scalability and cost efficiency on a secure, reliable, and resilient infrastructure as compared to traditional hosting solutions. Moreover, they provide eCommerce platforms with access to advanced services such as real-time analytics (for better customer preferences visibility) and automated inventory management (for optimized operations).
Entrepreneurs though should be cautious enough to avoid hosting their eCommerce platforms on low profile-limited support cloud providers which may be prone to security threats for their sensitive data. Trusted cloud providers like AWS, GCP and Azure on the other hand can help businesses protect their data from cyber threats that are becoming increasingly common in the digital age. They provide robust security measures such as encryption technology and multi-factor authentication which can help protect customer data from malicious actors.
eCommerce platform selection considerations
Choosing the right cloud provider can often be a major milestone for entrepreneurs when assisting ecommerce platforms – Shopify and Salla are typical examples for cloud-hosted ecommerce platforms.
Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the world, with over 1 million active stores worldwide. It offers an extensive range of features for businesses, including an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder, powerful analytics tools, and integrated payment solutions. Shopify also provides access to its own app store, allowing users to extend their store’s functionality with third-party apps and services.
Salla is a relatively new player in the eCommerce as a service space, but it has quickly become one of the leading providers in the Middle East region. It offers all of the features that Shopify does, but it also includes additional features tailored specifically for Middle Eastern markets such as multi-language support and local payment options. Additionally, Salla provides access to its own marketplace where users can list their products for sale directly on Salla’s platform.
Both Shopify and Salla offer similar advantages. Both platforms provide scalability and flexibility that allow businesses to quickly scale up or down depending on their needs. Additionally, both platforms offer robust security measures that protect customer data from malicious attacks or data breaches. Finally, both platforms are cost-effective solutions for businesses looking to launch an online store without having to invest heavily in infrastructure or personnel costs associated with running an online store from scratch.
eCommerce & well-architected framework
Careful consideration should be given to hosting such eCommerce platforms on a scalable, secure and cost-efficient infrastructure implies careful and professional adoption for best architecture practices known in AWS as WAF or well-architected framework.
In general, you will need storage for your web content such as images; compute capabilities for processing transactions; a relational database that stores customer information; and a web application server that handles site requests from customers.
When setting up your cloud environment on AWS there are a few items that should not be overlooked – such as security protocols like encryption and multi-factor authentication – to ensure customer data is kept safe from malicious actors in addition to other measures such as firewalls to protect against attacks from outside sources.
Consideration should also be given to setting up metrics tracking with CloudWatch to monitor performance metrics like user engagement and page load times in real-time or near real-time so you can identify bottlenecks before they become an issue.
You need to configure auto-scaling rules so that computing resources can automatically adjust based on usage patterns or the number of customers accessing your website at any given time. Auto-scaling helps relieve strain during peak times while also maintaining fast page load times throughout the day without sacrificing performance.
The last step is testing out the platform before moving it into production mode. Try hitting different pages quickly with multiple test scripts running concurrently and look for any dropped requests or lags in response time compared to when running normally under regular traffic loads as well as any other performance/efficiency issues before officially launching your site publicly.
2023: a promising eCommerce future
In conclusion, the forecast for 2023 looks promising for eCommerce businesses in the Middle East provided they take steps to mitigate potential risks such as an expected recession by leveraging cloud-based eCommerce platforms hosted on reliable cloud providers like AWS. Such platforms offer scalability, reliability, cost savings, advanced features, and robust security measures which can help businesses stay competitive while protecting their customers’ data from cyber threats.
Many entrepreneurs prefer to partner with professional service providers (such as Bexprt) who can abstract all integration complexities and ensure that their business is growing organically with a scalable approach.
Get in touch if you would like to know more about how we can help your business.
Many enterprise customers consider cloud adoption as their ‘Noah’s Ark’ during these times of recession, yet most of them fall through a common trap-door on their way to safety!
When moving workloads from on-prem CAPEX based infrastructure to a cloud provider platform who charges on a consumption basis, our experience is that few enterprises manage their cloud bills efficiently. But don’t worry, the Bexprt team can help you to optimise your spend.
There are six key optimization options when migrating to cloud,
It goes without saying that cost optimization is a use case-dependent exercise, as it requires a more holistic view of the deployment environment.
Bexprt’s skilled staff have achieved savings of up to 30% for some clients, by following cloud best practices and well architected framework principles.
If you would like to utilize Bexprt expertise to optimize your cloud bills – and avoid bill shocks – please get in touch!
Discover more on the GSMA Mobile 360 Riyadh website, here.
Post-event addendum
“Great to attend GSMA Mobile 360 in Riyadh, and for our team to meet with industry leaders in the region. Very informative sessions with great interactive panel discussions about the cognitive technology enabling the Kingdom’s digital transformation future.”
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