Muscat, Dec 2 - Oman could be hosting IT giants such as Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle and SAP in the future, thanks to the country’s largest commercial data centre that was launched on Sunday. These companies are expected to consider the Sultanate for hosting data, courtesy Datamount, a data hosting services company. Datamount launched the centre at a ceremony held here under the patronage of His Highness Sayyid Shihab bin Tareq al Said, Adviser to His Majesty the Sultan. With a total floor area of 9,000 square metres, the centre, located in Jabal Akhdar, will have 1,000 racks, making it the Sultanate’s largest scale-data centre and one of the largest in the region. It will generate nearly 100 direct and indirect jobs.
The company’s investment will result in 15 per cent of Datamount’s projects being awarded to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Datamount will also support IT initiatives like Smart City, IoT, Blockchain and setting up of training and innovation centres. Datamount has signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence Pension Fund for leasing its land at Jabal Al Akhdar with a total area of 28,000 square metres. The company has signed a partnership with Awasr for strategic telecom services and Avaya for cloud services. Datamount’s shareholders include the Royal Office Pension Fund, Ministry of Defence Pension Fund, Internal Security Services Pension Fund, Muscat Services and Investment, Seven Seas Group, Industrial Management Technology and Contracting (IMTAC) and Nasma Telecommunications.
Dr Tahir al Kindi, Chairman of the company, said: “The need for cloud services, ICT outsourcing, disaster recovery and other ICT-related services has been growing rapidly in the country due to increasing digital transformation of transactions and customer services.” He said Jabal Al Akhdar is an ideal/ secure location for a disaster recovery site. “It is our mission is to be beyond a regular data centre services provider. We are here to make a real difference by setting a new service standard in quality and integrity.” The company’s cloud computing services are ready for the market. Datamount is expected to go live with a mini data centre with a capacity of 20 racks in the second quarter of 2019. Subsequently, Datamount’s full set-up will be completed. It is expected to go live by the fourth quarter of 2020 with a capacity of 1,000 racks.
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