Industrial Visit to Oman Data Park

In conjunction with the university's strategic plan to strengthen the relationship with industry sectors for innovation, research and academic collaboration opportunities, the IT department has organized an industrial visit to Oman Data Park in Muscat in November 10, 2022. The visiting team included the Head of the Department, Dr Amal Al Abri; the Head of the IT Section, Ms Fatma Al Shamli; the Public Relation Committee Coordinator, Mr Abdullah Al Shukeily; and the Coordinator of the Research and Consultancy Committee Dr Qais Al Janabi.

The visit was organized to discuss various aspects, including organizing common activities, research and consultation opportunities, knowledge and experience exchange, and initiatives to support students' learning and training. It is worth mentioning that Oman Data Park (ODP) is the Sultanate's premier cloud services provider, established in 2011 to offer superior Managed Data Centre Services and Cloud Services utilizing its own Tier 3 certified Data Centers.

The visiting team was welcomed by Mr Muhanad Rashid Al Bahri, Senior Account Manager at Oman Data Park, who accompanied the visiting team to the meeting room, where he presented the company's profile, portfolio, and achievements. Mr Muhanad has extensively described the various cloud and security services offered by ODP. Afterwards, during an open discussion, the visiting team highlighted some of the key points where opportunities for research collaboration, knowledge exchange and student support initiatives can be realized.

Next, the visiting team met Mr Yasser Al Hosni, Team Leader of the Data Center at Oman Data Park. He escorted the group to the data center units, including the Network Operation Center (NOC) and the Colocation Unit. Mr Yasser has demonstrated the various physical and digital security measures applied by ODP to comply with the national and international standards as well as he demonstrated the facilities provided by ODP for colocation services, including the multi-source power supply, multi-source cooling system and network connectivity. During the tour the team also introduced to various software applications used for monitoring and alerting purposes. During this visit, our team had the chance, after taking all the security measures, to visit one of the most secure and highly technical places that many Omani companies and government institutes use to store their data and applications.

Later, our team met Mr Said Mohammed Al Jahwari, Deputy General Manager – Business Development at Oman Data Park. During the meeting, our team highlighted some of the actions to take place in order to strengthen the relationship with ODP and accelerate the collaboration adoption.

At the end of the visit, the team expressed their deepest gratitude and thanks to the ODP team for their time and hospitality.