Amer Carouba, Managing Director, Comstor Saudi Arabia & North Africa, Rafat Al-Obeidat, Managing Director, Jeraisy Computers and Comm. Services and Khaja Rafiquddin, Cisco Product Manager, recently sat down to discuss the value of Cisco data centres and other strategic priorities for regional organisations.
Why is data centre modernisation a strategic priority for organisations in Saudi Arabia today?
Amer Carouba: Data centres are no longer just IT backbones—they are business enablers. In Saudi Arabia, organisations are under pressure to scale digital services, adopt AI-driven applications, and ensure continuous availability. Cisco Data Centre solutions provide a modern, secure foundation that supports these demands while allowing customers to evolve at their own pace.
Rafat Alobeidat: From what we see at JCCS, customers are re-evaluating their infrastructure to support growth, resilience, and regulatory compliance. Modern data centres built on Cisco technologies allow organisations to improve performance and reliability while preparing for future workloads such as analytics and cloud-native applications.
What role do partners like JCCS play in successful Cisco Data Centre deployments?
Amer Carouba: Partners are central to Cisco’s success in the region. JCCS brings deep local expertise, customer trust, and delivery capability. At Comstor, we focus on enabling partners with technical knowledge, architectural guidance, and go-to-market support so they can deliver maximum value to end customers.
Rafat Alobeidat: Our role is to translate Cisco’s advanced technology into real-world solutions tailored to customer needs. With Comstor’s support and Cisco’s innovation, we can design, deploy, and support data centre environments that align with both business objectives and local requirements.
How do you see the evolution of edge computing and edge networking in the region, and what factors are driving organisations to rethink traditional branch and data centre architectures?
Khaja Rafiquddin: We are seeing a shift where the edge is becoming a strategic extension of the data centre and cloud. This evolution is driven by digital transformation initiatives, cloud adoption, and latency-sensitive applications such as collaboration, IoT, and AI-driven services. Centralised models no longer meet performance and agility requirements, pushing organisations to modernize their edge architectures.
What does Cisco Unified Edge mean in practical terms, and why is it becoming critical for organisations operating across distributed locations?
Khaja Rafiquddin: Cisco Unified Edge represents a single, integrated platform that combines networking, compute, security, and management at the edge. It is critical because organisations operate across many locations and need consistent deployment, visibility, and control without operational complexity.
How does Cisco Unified Edge differentiate itself from traditional branch or standalone edge networking solutions available in the market?
Khaja Rafiquddin: Unlike traditional solutions focused mainly on connectivity, Cisco Unified Edge delivers a platform-based approach integrating networking, compute, security, and cloud management, providing consistency across edge, data centre, and cloud environments.
How does Cisco Unified Edge support modern use cases such as hybrid work, IoT, smart branches, and real-time digital services?
Khaja Rafiquddin: It ensures secure connectivity and performance for hybrid work, scalable support for IoT and smart branches, and low-latency processing for real-time digital services.
Looking ahead, how do you see the role of the edge evolving over the next three to five years, and how should organisations prepare for this shift today?
Khaja Rafiquddin: The edge will evolve into an intelligent, autonomous layer supporting AI workloads and real-time decision-making. Organisations should adopt unified, cloud-managed, and automated architectures today to stay future-ready.
How do cloud-managed platforms such as Cisco Meraki Dashboard and Cisco Intersight simplify edge operations and improve visibility and control?
Khaja Rafiquddin: Cisco Meraki Dashboard enables zero-touch provisioning and real-time visibility, while Cisco Intersight provides unified compute and infrastructure management. Together, they offer centralized control, automation, and proactive insights.
Image Credit: Comstor, Jeraisy Computers & Cisco
