Cisco announced that the Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC) chose Cisco Borderless Network and Collaboration solutions for Phase 1 of its Port Special Systems project. The deployment will enable ADPC to build a secure and reliable platform to deliver services across Khalifa Port and eventually the industrial zone (Kizad).

At a ceremony held at GITEX 2011, Cisco and ADPC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen this relationship and explore potential collaborative opportunities that will enable the smart operations of the port as well as strategically connecting one of the world’s largest industrial zones which will facilitate trade, logistics and development contributing to the overall economic expansion of the region.

Tony Douglas, CEO Abu Dhabi Ports Company said, “This agreement represents a major step forward that will enable ADPC to use the network as a platform to build the foundation of modern port infrastructure and business services to achieve Abu Dhabi 2030 vision for establishing a sustainable and diversified economy.”

Wayne Hull, director and general manager, Cisco UAE said, “Cisco’s continued collaboration with Abu Dhabi Government and Abu Dhabi Ports Company demonstrates our vision to play a major role in connecting the nation Empowering Phase 1 of Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone through Cisco technologies and solutions is a true testimony of Cisco’s leadership and innovation.”

As a core part of this agreement, Cisco will cooperate in the creation of new service propositions & initiatives, primarily focused on aligning ADPC’s ICT strategy objectives with Cisco's advanced technologies. This will enable ADPC to stay at the forefront of technological updates and market transformations to be able to harness new trends and translate them into new business opportunities to achieve ADPC’s sustainable growth objectives. The agreement will also bring training and continuous education opportunities to ADPC’s employees that strengthen their productivity, career development and job satisfaction.

Khalifa Port & Industrial Zone is a key enabler for economic diversification, development and trade in the region as it will promote new partnership models and services at the forefront of industrial logistics and manufacturing. Hence there was an urge to deploy a smart and intelligent platform that will form the basis to drive the intelligence of the services and systems as well as to develop a connected hub for trade and logistics between the offshore port and the onshore facilities.

ADPC was in need to explore a solution that delivers state of the art technologies to support the highly sophisticated port-related applications and systems as well as to cater for the unprecedented world-class capacity growth of the port. Cisco was leading to achieve ADPC’s business goals through the provision of a technologically advanced and powerful network to cope with the envisaged network traffic while connecting people and devices onshore and offshore as well as outstations indoors and outdoors through a highly available, secured and reliable communications network.

The Cisco Borderless Network solution was the solution that will allow Khalifa Port to connect anyone, anywhere, anytime and on any device – securely, reliably and seamlessly.

An Ethernet Network is also required to provide data connectivity throughout Khalifa Port, allowing multiple Local Area Networks (LANs) to communicate between devices both on- and off-shore. The active components must be technologically advanced and powerful enough to cope with the massive network traffic, allowing sufficient capacity for future expansion. Cisco Catalyst Switches was the key enabler for such an advanced and powerful network.

The WLAN infrastructure will support the various port systems and stakeholder groups that require remote access to the data network. Since the WLAN is an extension of the data network, any system that is accessible over the LAN shall be accessible over the WLAN, given the correct security permissions. The Cisco