Etisalat Sri Lanka receives regional IT excellence award
Thursday, 12 December 2013 00:00
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Only Sri Lankan telco to win at prestigious ‘VMware IT Excellence Awards’
Etisalat Sri Lanka, the local arm of the leading global telecommunications company, received an award at the ‘VMware IT Excellence Awards’ held in Mumbai, India for the implementation of ‘Cloud and Virtualisation Technologies’. The company received the award under the category ‘Defy Convention’, which is presented to companies that embark on technology initiatives, challenging the conventional operational practices or methods.
The ‘VMware IT Excellence Awards’ recognises excellence in IT innovation based on the business value, IT departments and CIOs bring to their organisations. By receiving this prestigious award for the Cloud implementation, Etisalat Sri Lanka has become the only Sri Lankan Telco to be nominated for the award, Ruwan Maldeniya, Head of VAS and Broadband Technical Operations of Etisalat Sri Lanka, received the award on behalf of the organisation.
Etisalat Sri Lanka has implemented cloud infrastructure using ‘VMware vCloud Suite’ technology to enhance the performance, management and efficiency of its IT infrastructure and services to external and internal customers. By deploying the ‘VMware vCloud Suite’ in March 2013, the company became the first Telecom operator in Sri Lanka to adopt the software Defined Data Centre.
With this implementation, Etisalat Sri Lanka expects to reduce its capital expenditure by 50% and operating costs by 40%. The Telco giant deployed a private cloud for its internal IT operations, which it plans to scale to offer Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) to customers in the country.
“As we continue to expand our presence and services in the country, our priority is to optimise our IT infrastructure to improve the quality of service and be able to quickly respond to the emerging trends in the market,” said Sanath Pilapitiya, Chief Technology Officer of Etisalat Sri Lanka.
“The VMware vCloud Suite will help us to significantly reduce our IT costs, while also giving us the flexibility and agility we need to stay competitive in the country’s fast-growing telecom sector. I’m happy to say that we have already managed to secure few major corporate clients, which is a testament to the many benefits offered by this product.”
Elaborating on the benefits of this solution, Ruwan Maldeniya, Head of VAS and Broadband Technical Operations of Etisalat stated: “Cloud implementation has helped us to drive our popular Value Added Services (VAS) applications by significantly reducing the provisioning times in addition to setting up a platform that dynamically optimises itself to handle vastly varying demands.” He added that cloud infrastructure will also enable the company to offer IaaS and SaaS to their valued customers.
The IT Excellence Awards recognises organisations that demonstrate the desire and ability to drive IT not just to run the business, but also to transform the business.
VMware partnered with CNBC TV18 to present the ‘IT Excellence Awards,’ on the eve of VMware’s annual vForum 2013 event in Mumbai.
