Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has on Wednesday announced its collaboration with Sarawak Information Systems (SAINS), a information and communications technology (ICT) systems integrator and solutions provider fully owned by Sarawak state government.
The announcement was marked with the signing of a memorandum of agreement, as SAINS launched its Private Cloud, a high-tech, innovative and highly secure cloud solution powered by Alibaba Cloud.
Alibaba Cloud said in a statement that this is the first Alibaba Cloud private cloud program in Malaysia reflecting a significant step forward in accelerating digital transformation in the region and in bringing advanced cloud computing and innovative technologies to public services, businesses, organizations and education institutions in East Malaysia.
It said core to this initiative is the firm’s deployment of its Apsara Stack solution that provides customers with flexible implementation for different kinds of businesses.
It said the implementation of the new infrastructure solution will also provide reliable hosting services to SAINS’ customers, reducing and minimizing Recovery Time Objectives; which refers to the maximum tolerable length of time that a computer, system, network or application can be down after a failure or disaster occurs.
According to the statement, SAINS has developed many applications for its customers over the years since its founding.
Advancements in mobile technology and cloud technology have also raised the expectations of SAINS’ customers in terms of application reliability and disaster recovery.
SAINS has also decided to implement fast auto recovery of customers’ applications.
The new infrastructure built by Alibaba Cloud is designed for hyperscaling and financial-grade disaster recovery capabilities which supports SAINS’ future expansion and roadmap with high security standards.
With the deployment of two Availability Zones disaster recovery Apsara Stack in Sarawak; SAINS and its key customer the Sarawak government can enjoy the benefit of applications running active across two zones simultaneously.
“The recent trend we have noticed is that our customer has high expectations of us in terms of application service reliability and service restoration times,
“Thus, we have decided to implement private cloud-based platforms with automatic disaster recovery capabilities from our partners such as Alibaba Cloud to ensure we can quickly deliver peace of mind and security while also meeting the data sovereignty policy of our key customers,” said Busiai Seman, chief executive officer of SAINS.
The collaboration is facilitated by VSTECS Pericomp, the distributor for Alibaba Cloud in Malaysia and a subsidiary of VSTECS Berhad, one of the leading ICT distributors in the country and a technology enabler for the past four decades.
The VSTECS group has played an integral role in supporting ICT infrastructure and supporting digital transformation in the State of Sarawak and across Malaysia.
With the integration of the solution known for its stability, security, openness and smart cloud features tailored for enterprises; it further allows Sarawak to position herself as a forefront digital economy hub in Malaysia.
“The Apsara Stack solution combines leading technical capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region with comprehensive operational capabilities,
“This will enable Sarawak to take the digital leap further and faster; to be at the forefront in cloud technology adoption. We are also confident that our collaboration with SAINS will drive innovation, efficiency and growth in the region,” said Kun Huang, General Manager of Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
The freshly inked partnership is yet another demonstration of Alibaba Cloud’s long-term commitment to empowering Malaysia as a high value-added economy.
It is part of a continued investment of time, expertise and resources in accelerating her digital transformation journey with advanced technologies and streamlined solutions.
As one of the world’s leading cloud service providers, Alibaba Cloud boasts a network of 89 availability zones in 30 regions across the globe, offering a highly secure, scalable, robust cloud infrastructure to support global customers embracing digital innovation with keeping sustainability in mind.
Alibaba Cloud is also the first global cloud provider with twin local data centres established in Malaysia since 2017 and has launched its first cloud-based Anti-DDos Scrubbing Center locally in 2018 serving the region.
Established in 2009, the firm offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and internet of things (IoT) services.
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