Information & eGovernment Authority, Bahrain (iGA), the umbrella organisation that provides digital services to all Bahrain public sector entities, including hosting, operating, and managing the government’s systems, is powering a new wave of secure digital innovation after deploying VMware multi-cloud solutions.
Demand for digital services is growing rapidly in Bahrain, with the government aiming to make the country the leading digital economy in the region to support its growing population of more than 1.5 million people.
iGA, whose vast workload includes services covering large-scale infrastructure such as Bahrain central population registry system, national addresses system, border system, national passport system, in addition to healthcare, education and all types of services for businesses and individuals, had already migrated a significant proportion of its operations to the public cloud. However, about 30% of its workload remained on-premises and required resources to focus on operations instead of innovation.
By deploying a full hybrid cloud solution from VMware, iGA was able to replace its on-premises workloads and recovery site to a secure sovereign cloud solution, fully integrated with its public cloud workloads, meaning government agencies can scale up and innovate with modern applications while protecting data and improving security and resilience.
iGA deployed a hybrid cloud platform consisting of several integrated VMware solutions – including VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and VMware Aria Universal Suite, a SaaS management suite – to create a managed sovereign cloud solution for its on-premises workloads and connect it premises to AWS public cloud region in Bahrain.
Dr. Khalid Ahmed Almutawah, deputy chief executive, Operations and Governance, iGA Bahrain, said: “These solutions enable iGA to focus on higher value-added activities while aligning with the government’s cloud-first strategy. By offering secure, flexible cloud solutions to government agencies and private sector organisations, we can ensure workloads are operating at maximum efficiency and availability. This will enable the government to fulfil its mission of helping Bahrain to transform into the finest country in the GCC to visit, live, work and conduct business.”
iGA also deployed VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Site Recovery to ensure maximum availability and business continuity for its users meeting the required recovery time objective and recovery point objective defined by the lines of businesses.
Ahmed Auda, Vice President & GM Middle East, Turkey & North Africa at VMware, said: “iGA Bahrain demonstrates how governments can use multi-cloud and sovereign cloud solutions to drive agility, innovation and security. We look forward to continuing to support iGA Bahrain as it powers digital transformation across the kingdom.”
