Riyadh

Industry research indicates that the Saudi IT market, largest in the Middle East, totalled 7.1 billion USD in 2012, and is expected to grow rapidly to surpass 12.4 billion USD by 2016. Our annual census also highlights the key investment drivers in KSA being increased IT capacity, enabling virtualisation and cloud computing, increasing redundancy and a move towards being more sustainable and green.

The need for a robust data center environment has become imperative for business establishments in KSA. At the same time there is a growing need for evaluating new methodologies for sustainable business growth that leverage the current trends and developments in data center technology.

While there are, as our 2012 census reports issues of labour cost and skills shortage, there are also significant growth projections with an increased investment in modular data centers, building of new data centers and consolidation. A lot of attention is now also being diverted towards global trends such as the monitoring of energy consumption, move towards lower carbon emissions, building greener, more sustainable and scalable data centers. In 2012 the proportion of outsourcing footprint of KSA has been the highest in the entire EMEA market, at 27.7% which comes to 20% of the regions entire data center investment.

Data center professionals can no longer confine themselves to traditional disciplines and demarcated responsibilities. Organizations dependent on legacy IT infrastructure in Saudi Arabia are increasingly being challenged to handle real-time operations. The siloed and often fractious relationship between Facilities and IT is being challenged at every turn. The battle for optimisation is being fought where physical and logical infrastructure meet, and Cloud infrastructure and Software-as-a-Service become a reality.

Keeping these subjects at the backdrop, we invite you to the 2nd Annual DCD Converged Riyadh on the 10th of December 2013 at the Four Seasons Hotel

While there are many obstacles in our path, growth remains strong. Join us as we attempt at engaging the best mix of key public and private players to uncover the drivers and inhibitors that will shape the market in the near and long term future making it robust and sturdy.