DUBAI: Eaman Al-Roudhan with Shukri Eid and Nawaf Al-Gharabally along with Cisco officials at GITEX.

KUWAIT: Zain, the leading digital service provider in Kuwait, announced the launch of software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) managed services in collaboration with its global partner Cisco. The company is the first service provider in Kuwait to offer world-class SD-WAN services to its business customers, enabling them to optimize their networks to suit their unique needs while balancing performance and cost.

The announcement was made during Zain's participation at the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX Technology Week 2021). The international event, hosted in the United Arab Emirates, is organized by the Dubai World Trade Center, and features the biggest global technology companies, organizations, and entities from the Telecom and IT industry.

Commenting on the announcement, Zain Kuwait's Chief Executive Officer Eaman Al-Roudhan said: "With today's launch, we continue to expand our extended partnership with our global partner Cisco towards achieving our joint goals by serving the needs of Kuwait's business community. We are keen on bringing the most innovative services and solutions from global markets and exclusively launch them for our customers within the local market".

Al-Roudhan continued: "We are proud that Zain is the first service provider in Kuwait to offer world-class SD-WAN services from Cisco. These services will serve a wide range of our customers, including large companies, public entities, as well as SMEs. SD-WAN will elevate the quality and efficiency of the customer's network as per their unique needs".

Al-Roudhan added: "This offering comes as part of Zain's tireless efforts to continue bringing the latest and most advanced network security solutions to the Kuwaiti business community, both large businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This announcement also comes in line with the company's digital transformation strategy that aims at empowering a more efficient business sector in the nation".

Al-Roudhan concluded: "Digital transformation tools are a necessity to grow business sectors and overcome their challenges. Zain serves the biggest customer base in Kuwait, and so we double our efforts to enrich their experiences with the latest and most advanced solutions in collaboration with our global partners". "The implementation of Cisco SD-WAN Architecture with Zain reflects our position as a leader in the global, software-based network transformation movement" said Shukri Eid, Managing Director, Cisco Gulf Region.

"With Cisco's SDN Architecture, Zain has taken a significant step in realizing not only its digital future but also Kuwait's digital transformation journey, and we are proud to be supporting them on this journey." Zain's SD-WAN, powered by its global partner Cisco, provides customers with a clear view of their data flows across their wide area network, allowing them to optimize traffic to suit their unique business needs while balancing performance and cost.

The service solves many critical enterprise IT cases, including establishing a transport-independent WAN for lower costs and higher diversity, meeting Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) for business-critical and real-time applications on-premises and in the cloud, providing complete security roadmaps for branches and SaaS/Internet, enabling secure multi-cloud transformation for enterprises, providing centralized management, analytics, and policy across the global WAN, and more.

The improved control also reduces risk when migrating applications and data to the cloud, and it is offered globally as a managed service while building on Zain's sophisticated orchestration capabilities. Customers will benefit from a full Cisco technology roadmap and the skills and experience of a dedicated center of excellence to help them design, deliver and evolve their SD-WAN.

Cisco SD-WAN is a cloud-delivered overlay WAN architecture connecting branches to data center and multi-cloud environments through a single fabric. The launch further expands Zain's enterprise customers' choice of Cisco-based software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions. Zain's orchestration capabilities are an essential part of the new service, allowing it to correlate data from across a customer's hybrid network, while providing a complete picture of incidents and causes to manage day-to-day network operations effectively.

Last year, Zain received three international certifications from Cisco, the global leader in telecommunications and networks technologies. The certifications reflected the company's commitment to offering the latest and most advanced digital solutions as per the highest international standards for customers in Kuwait's business sector. The first certification from Cisco, Advanced Collaboration Architecture Specialized Partner, acknowledged Zain's capabilities with respect to Cisco's HCS solutions over the cloud in the Kuwaiti market.

The second certification, Advanced Cloud and Managed Services Certified Partner, affirmed Zain's capabilities in offering the latest advanced cloud and managed services to corporate customers. The third certification recognized Zain as a Premier Certified Partner of Cisco. The bundle of services and solutions Zain offers in collaboration with Cisco aims at raising operational efficiency and increasing productivity for businesses while providing high levels of security.

Zain's strategy is centered around digital transformation leadership and empowering the community to enjoy a smarter portable lifestyle, as well as using advanced technology to enable an easier and more flexible life. The company places itself as an active partner in creating the future of smart life in Kuwait. Yesterday's launch contributes to proving the company's full potential in triggering the digital community, and will enrich its collaborations in Telecom and IT areas with its strategic partners on multiple levels.