Huawei, Dubai Airports partner for modular data center

DUBAI - China ICT giant Huawei and Dubai Airports, the government-controlled holding company of Dubai International Airport, said on Monday they agreed to build the world's first "Tier III certified Modular Data Centre Complex (MDCC)" at the biggest civil aviation hub in the Middle East.

The design-and-construct contract was signed earlier on Monday during the ongoing Gitex Technology Week, one of the world's biggest annual ICT trade shows.

The project will serve the world's busiest international airport, which served around 78 million passengers in 2015.

"The DXB data center will be the first of two planned modular facilities that Huawei will build for Dubai Airports," they added.

Together, they will operate as a pair of "mirrored Tier III data centres" interconnected through a dedicated fiber optic link that will provide high-level resilience and availability to support the critical operations of Dubai Airports.

In contrast to a traditional data center, a modular data center can be flexibly deployed where data storage capacity is in need and customers can scale the existing center by adding data storage modules, according to Huawei.

They will provide a "stable and reliable environment for Dubai Airports to host its private cloud." The MDCC will be the world's first modular data centers certified by the Uptime Institute to Tier III for design and construction.

On average, almost 230,000 passengers pass through DXB per day, a figure that is expected to grow to 325,000 by 2023.

"Technology is key to enhancing our ability to grow, innovate and ultimately enhance the customer experience," said Abdel Rahman Alhosani, vice president in charge of business technology infrastructure and operations of Dubai Airports.

"At the same time we will improve system reliability across both airports and cut operational costs," he claimed.

Alaa El Shimy, managing director and vice president of Huawei Enterprise Middle East, said "ensuring that mission-critical IT is constantly operational is key in the aviation sector -- and even more so for the operator of the world's busiest international airport."

The first facility will be constructed at Dubai International in 2017. The timelines for another data centre have yet to be confirmed.

According to Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, Dubai International airport aims to attract 90 million passengers by the end of 2017. The Gulf Arab emirate benefits from its strategic location in the intersection between Europe, Africa and Central and East Asia.