Rotana Hotel Management Corporation Ltd., is set to enhance its service to over 300 e-mail users from 17 hotels, suites and resort locations throughout the Middle East following an agreement signed with Comtrust, the e-business infrastructure unit of Etisalat. By hosting Rotana's Microsoft Exchange server at Etisalat's Data Center facilities, the Internet based solution will reduce overall management costs, protect vital data and make it easier for users to access their e-mails from anywhere, at anytime.
Hosting at Comtrust will help Rotana to eliminate costs associated with connecting to the Internet via a leased-line, and freeing the resources of its IT department to concentrate on more critical technology activities.
"The Microsoft Exchange server which runs our email system requires constant support and was often down due to heavy usage. Also, with a rising tide in Internet intrusion and attacks, the management needs added security measures to ensure the protection of the company's growing e-mail communication," said Atef W. Elias, General Manager and Chairman of Rotana's IT Committee.
He continued, "Our ongoing marketing campaign requires us to send out large numbers of e-mails to our club members and prospective customers worldwide, and any delay or system shutdowns affects all users in 13 UAE properties and at 4 other locations in the Middle East.
With Comtrust hosting our e-mail server we can take advantage of 24x7 support, tape back-up management, remote hand and system monitoring. This not only frees up our IT resources to focus on improving our internal systems but also means we have no need to increase headcount to deal with day-to-day issues."
The proposed solution will host a server owned by Rotana along side a dual processor server leased from Comtrust. One of the servers will act as a standby back-up (fail-over) in case the online machine falls down whilst both are protected under Comtrust's 'Standard Security Services.' The service includes anti-spoofing, packet filtering and an isolated Virtual LAN dedicated to each individual customer. As an added protection, Rotana's machines will also be placed behind Comtrust's multi-layered firewalls - that enable blocking unwanted ports, restricting IP addresses and eliminating ICMP ping attacks.
"Rotana's decision to have its communication server web-hosted through Comtrust means they join a growing list of organisations which have identified the need for powerful and flexible dedicated hosting services tailored to meet the needs of their business. Comtrust's Dedicated E-Commerce Hosting Services are designed to manage applications that demand the utmost in flexibility, reliability, performance and security. Our solutions will provide the IT resources and infrastructure Rotana need's to support advanced applications," said Tariq Habib, Manager Business & Technology and Acting General Manager,
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