Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has migrated its on-premise SAP landscape to Data Hub Integrated Solutions LLC (Moro) to realise innovation, cost efficiency, scalability, speed and resiliency. This is one of the world’s largest migrations for SAP HEC in the utilities sector. It is also one of the largest data migrations across all industries at the European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) level.
The project consists of two parts: the migration of on-premise landscape to SAP HEC and the managed services by Moro Hub. DEWA collaborated with Moro Hub and several international IT vendors including SAP, EY and Virtustream to complete the project. DEWA’s SAP landscape consists of 24 SAP modules including business-critical systems like Business Suite on Hana, CRM, SRM, PO, Business Intelligence, Fiori and complex integration along with external entities and third-party systems.
The move is one of the largest of its kind globally. Nearly 250,000 man-hours were spent, with more than 150 specialists from DEWA, Moro Hub, EY, SAP and Virtustream working on the project. The project transferred over 100 terabytes of data from 101 systems and tested more than 28,370 business transactions. This migration aims to offer better business support to all DEWA stakeholders; as Moro Hub manages all its Information Technology operations, IT support, data management, monitoring operational efficiency, maintaining the highest security standards and state-of-the-art technologies in data centres as well as providing support around the clock.
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA, said: “The migration from on-premises to SAP HEC at Moro Hub is a qualitative shift in digital solutions. DEWA is proud to take the lead in this achievement, which aligns with its efforts in shaping and anticipating the future.
“This is in accordance with the UAE Centennial 2071 to make the UAE the best country in the world; the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031; the Dubai 10X initiative, and the UAE Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai a city of the future, putting it 10 years ahead of other global cities.
“It also supports the Dubai 2021 plan to position Dubai as the preferred place to live, work and visit. DEWA supports the Digital Transformation in the UAE and consolidating the position of Dubai as a global digital platform. Moro’s launch is part of DEWA’s projects to use innovative solutions and technologies for different government organisations. This supports the National Innovation Strategy, launched by His Highness, to make the UAE one of the most innovative nations in the world.
“This project achieves DEWA’s vision as a globally leading sustainable innovative corporation and Moro’s strategic vision to be the most preferred choice and destination for the public and private sectors in the UAE and the region in terms of data storage and cloud-based digital service management.
“This enhances the integration of institutional operations, monitoring operations, providing the best suggestions for decision making, providing world-class high-quality services and multiple solutions in one place, thus enhancing customer experience.”
Marwan Bin Haidar, Executive Vice President of Innovation and the Future at DEWA, said: “The growing changes in DEWA’s technology requires harnessing all capabilities to innovate unconventional services that achieve the wise leadership’s directions in digital and smart transformation, which focus on quality, excellence and leadership. This enhances the competitiveness of the Emirate bringing it to the forefront of cities that not only foresee the future but also create it. We strive to provide innovative and smart services that save the time and efforts of customers and make them happy. We believe in the importance of innovation in creating sustainable solutions to challenges, keeping pace with global rapid changes and transform them into opportunities.
“Digital Transformation and real-time solutions are optimising DEWA’s costs, scalability, and customer experiences,” said Gergi Abboud, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SAP Middle East South. “We are exchanging global best practices in digital utilities for DEWA to reach visionary heights as a sustainable and innovative world-class utility. We will continue to support UAE Vision 2021’s government-led transformation agenda.”
Abdulaziz Al-Sowailim, MENA Chairman and CEO, EY, said: “EY is proud to support DEWA’s migration to the SAP HEC Enterprise Cloud in Moro Hub. The volume and complexity of the project required a huge amount of co-ordination between various groups within DEWA to ensure a smooth transition for the business and its customers. This shift to a state-of-the-art data centre will allow DEWA to better innovate and scale its business, and uphold its efforts to achieve the highest levels of customer happiness as part of the Smart Dubai initiative. DEWA’s willingness to deploy emerging technology has set a new standard for smart government in the region, and reinforces its position at the forefront of the global utility industry.”
Rory Read, President and CEO, Virtustream, said: “When it comes to running the world’s most important IT workloads in the cloud, leaders from both the private and public sectors turn to experienced partners who they can trust.
“Virtustream’s comprehensive, mission-critical cloud platform and expertise has helped organisations modernise and future-proof their IT and we’re proud to work with industry visionaries like DEWA and Moro Hub on this project.”
Moro Hub is the leader in offering data centre and cloud services along with digital services for the public and private sectors in the UAE and the region. It also provides integrated data centre solutions to utilise the latest disruptive technologies and keep pace with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to deliver secure, reliable cloud solutions to support innovation in AI, IoT, Blockchain and Machine Learning.
