Cisco Systems: Cisco announces new plan to build Saudi Arabia data center

Cisco has announced its plans to establish a new data center in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The facility, the company said, will help customers protect their users, infrastructure, and investments against threat actors. Dedicated to cloud-delivered security, the facility is pegged to provide agile and highly resilient secure access to users, with security an increasing focus in the region. 

The company cited results from its latest Cisco Security Outcomes Report, which revealed 54% of organizations surveyed in Saudi Arabia had experienced security incidents that had a detrimental impact on their business. Specifically, 60% encountered distributed denial of service attacks (60 percent), 54 percent experienced network or system outages, and 40% faced malicious insider abuse events.

The company has forecast the data center to have service availability by mid-2024.

Speaking about this development, Salman Faqeeh, Managing Director of Cisco in Saudi Arabia, said that announcement "reconfirms Cisco's alignment" to provide advanced cloud security protection and services to the Saudi community. 

"It builds on Cisco's long-standing commitment to our customers and reflects our continued support for digital transformation, by using the power of technologies to create a secured thriving digital economy in Saudi Arabia," Faqeeh added. 

Further details regarding the specifications of the facility have not yet been released.