GEC NEWS WIREADMA-OPCO has recently achieved certification for ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 for Information Technology Service Management System. Dr.Alaeddin Al-Badawna, VP of IT at the Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company talks about the progress made in the Oil and Gas sector along with the way the region’s technological appetite has increased. In a tête-à-tête with ECMEA, Dr Alaeddin speaks about his organization, Middle East region and about the world with endless possibilities.
Enterprises in a ‘digital’ light
‘If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change’. The idea of digitalization may be a much talked about concept, but how exactly does this notion of digitalization fit in the enterprise infrastructure explains Dr. Alaeddin Al-Badawna as he expresses his delight on digital transformation which is readily adopted by the GCC countries. Dr.Alaeddin says ‘Digitalization is inevitable’, systems become obsolete, there is a need to move to new systems and enterprises must break free from their legacy models and readily rework on deploying digitalized solutions. Being a crucial part of the IDC IT Forum 2016 he stated that, “The idea of this forum was to exchange information about different experiences with various customers from different verticals. As a panelist at the forum I had a chance to get ample of fruitful information on how various technology implementers come across challenges and issues with regards to digital transformation.”
Under the depths of Oil and Gas
There is always a curiosity factor associated to the Oil and Gas sector, challenges and IT implementations are way different from other verticals. Shedding light on the IT operations and breaking free from old legacy models, Dr.Alaeddin explained, that the facilities in Oil plants go back to more than 50years so implementing digital technology is a complex process. He said, “Despite the ground work to decide on the right technologies to implement we come across some surprises when it comes to infrastructure. Digitalization is driven by end users and not IT providers.” ADMA is a big name in the Oil and Gas industry and people are keen to understand more about its technological implementations and the kind of developments it has instilled, when asked about ADMA, Dr.Alaeddin proudly smiled and said, “We implemented IP, we replaced our analog to IP. We believe in innovation, with digital transformation one can innovate, integrate and incorporate. We implemented multi phased flow meter, this equipment reads the water and gas ratio in the oil and one can determine the flow of oil coming up. This multi phased equipment requires fiber and power, with old towers this isn’t possible and therefore you need to study your infrastructure and then deploy the ideal technology. We operate in off shore areas, our employees want information which is accurate and in real-time, so we associate importance to digital transformation. The latest state-of-art green technology, a pre-manufactured scalable Modular Data Centre (MDC) has been introduced at one of the company’s location to achieve infrastructure convergence.” Digitalization definitely brings with it risks, the more an enterprise shifts to digitization, the more it is prone to threats.
Managing the wraths of risk
ADMA as an organization recognizes that the eco-system is surrounded by unforeseen and foreseen risk. Combatting risk with efficient and innovative ways thrives in the veins of ADMA. Highlighting ways incorporated by ADMA for risk management Dr. Alaeddin revealed, “With whatever technology we are introducing in the company there is always a risk involved and with incidents happening in Oil and Gas companies we have to be extra careful, in the last 5 years the amount of attacks in Oil and Gas in the Gulf region has increased 50 to 60 times. We ensure our vital information is protected by our systems. We understand the ugly face of attacks and therefore we have industrial security along with business and operations security. We have empowered our IT, we don’t compromise with budget and for us security is a priority. We also deploy the best professionals to manage the risks. We have frequent risk assessments for security.”
An expert eye for the Oil and Gas Industry and a dynamic outlook towards advanced IT implementation, Dr. Alaeddin summed up the conversation by his thought, “Business is like a wheel and CIO is like an accelerator of a car, if they are well synchronized they can move together with great speed.”
BY- SONAL LUNAWAT, SONAL@ACCENTINFOMEDIA
