Gulftainer streamlines port operations with Oracle Cloud technologies
UAE-based global port operator achieves high availability, reduces TCO by 30%, and streamlines logistics operations on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
United Arab Emirates | Transportation of Goods
“Our big win is the accelerated response time and enhanced system availability to ensure our operations remain cost-effective and secure. Oracle Cloud has enabled us to dynamically scale the workloads of future strategic projects onto readily available, advanced technology platforms and to use only the most innovative services. The most important benefit, though, is that we pay only for what we use, when we actually use it.”
Gulftainer is a leading global port operator that manages container terminals in the Middle East and the United States. Founded in 1976 to operate the first container terminal in the Middle East at the port of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Gulftainer's current portfolio spans the Middle East and the US. In the Middle East, it handles maritime logistics in the Sharjah Container Terminal and Khorfakkan Container Terminal, the ports of Jubail in Saudi Arabia, and Umm Qasr Port in Iraq. It is the first and only Middle Eastern port operator to manage ports in the US (Port of Wilmington in Delaware and Canaveral Container Terminal in Florida).
Currently, Gulftainer is on a mission to diversify from a pure port operator to a global organization providing value-added, integrated maritime supply chain solutions. The company has embarked on a digital transformation journey to migrate its in-house data centers to hybrid cloud solutions.
Gulftainer runs its customer-critical port operations on its terminal operating system. Until recently, this was hosted in an in-house data center. An aging data center led to high latency, resulting in reduced availability. In addition, it required more time for technology upgrades, leading to higher fixed costs. The leadership envisioned standardized business applications across the globe. At this point, Gulftainer decided to move the data center to the cloud.
Why Gulftainer chose Oracle
Gulftainer’s IT team created an evaluation matrix with key performance indicators related to technical, functional, and financial areas. The company undertook a proof of concept with various vendors and tasked its infrastructure monitoring partner, Cloud4C, to help evaluate the contenders.
Gulftainer has always used Oracle Database as its technology stack. During a four-month proof of concept, Oracle demonstrated how to migrate Gulftainer's port operating system to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and ran tests to prove maximum fit. "The tests and recommendations from the Oracle experts were outstanding," says Vinay Sharma, group IT director. "We had our reservations about business disruption when moving to the cloud, but Oracle gave us great confidence."
He also noted that the decision to go with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was value-based. The company weighed which company would be the best long-term global partner. Oracle demonstrated a deep understanding of Gulftainer's business, and the fact that it was based in Dubai also facilitated the decision-making process.
"Oracle has given our business users a good performance boost and is now our system of choice," says Sharma. "We will be bringing more workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure."
Results
Gulftainer achieved a 40% improvement in response time and a 30% reduction in overall costs. The application availability has been 99.99% since go-live and has helped Gulftainer serve its customers more efficiently, more quickly, and reliably. The customer portal now running from OCI has excellent speed and has improved the overall customer experience using Gulftainer's online services. Due to this, many customers have found it easier to transact online than visiting the terminal, which has helped reduce the rush at terminal counters.
Apart from these tangible benefits, the complete upgrade process of the operating system and database is handled by the OCI team. The process considerably diminished the workload on GT staff because upgrades and updates are now seamless.
Thanks to these upgrades, Gulftainer now has a template for establishing new sites and migrating existing sites to OCI. The overall deployment time of its systems has been considerably reduced.
Partners
Cloud4C, headquartered in Hyderabad, India, is a cloud managed services company specializing in critical workloads. The company helped Gulftainer migrate to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Cloud4C also monitors Gulftainer’s infrastructure 24/7 by running the company’s network operations center and security operations center.