Bahrain has successfully implemented the first phase of a collaborative e-government project with Microsoft, paving the way for the government's full use of a new active directory based on the MS Windows 2003 server. Officials from Central Informatics Organisation and Microsoft Bahrain announced on Wednesday night the government's use of the Microsoft system, allowing easier administration and collaboration throughout all public-sector departments.
This new measure follows the signing of a government security programme (GSP) between Bahrain government and Microsoft last month. The agreement was signed by CIO president Shaikh Mohammed bin Ateyattala Al Khalifa and Bill Gates of Microsoft.
"We're pleased with the fast pace at which Microsoft has moved in the implementation of the new Active Directory and e-government collaboration and messaging system. Security is of the utmost importance when it comes to our information-technology requirements," said CIO undersecretary Shaikh Ahmad bin Ateyattala Al Khalifa at a presentation before the organisation and key government IT personnel held at the Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday night.
The Active Directory creates a single information bank of all resources on the Government Data Network, allowing more control on these resources. This results in lower IT-management costs, easier administration and better security through standardisation of resources and management. Shaikh Ahmad said the project will "save the government hundreds of thousands of dinars" apart from facilitating more efficiency within the government.
"This will have a big impact on our government sector," he said. "We'll now have a single e-mail system for all our employees which can be accessed anywhere in the world."
"This will benefit our government organisations, especially our embassies around the world," he said. Microsoft has aided the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in migrating to a new secured-messaging system developed, using the Microsoft Exchange 2003. Bahraini embassies will benefit from easy and secure e-mail services at lower operational cost as opposed to traditional courier services.
Launched in January 2003, the GSP is a crucial element of Microsoft?s efforts to address the unique security requirements of governments around the world.
GSP provides national governments with information to help them evaluate the security of the Microsoft Windows platform.
For the government of Bahrain, the programme provides a close partnership with Microsoft as well as access to source the code for Microsoft applications, allowing the two to collaborate on building secure and robust solutions to enable Bahrain to realise its vision of e-government.
"Having signed the GSP, the government of the Kingdom of Bahrain, is able to leverage both Microsoft and its own resources to design and build secure computing infrastructures.
The new e-mail system and Active Directory are only a part of what they can achieve by utilising Microsoft as trusted partners," said Samir Benmakhlouf, business development manager of Microsoft Bahrain.
Quelle: MENAFN, 22.02.2004
