Bilingual Islamic portal to mirror its hosting operation in Middle East

Dubai, UAE, 27^th May 2003

Qatar-based Islam Online, one of the world’s most visited bilingual Islamic Internet portals, has chosen Comtrust, the e-solutions business unit of Etisalat, to create an eHosting solution for the Middle East.

According to Islam Online, its IT staff recently became concerned over possible downtime occurrences. “We realized the time zone differences between our existing service provider outside this region and our target audience in the Middle East left us vulnerable,” said Dr Yousef Alhorr, General Manager, Islam Online. “We have worked hard to create a portal that ultimately has become a reference for everything that deals with Islam, its sciences, civilization and nations.”

The portal offers an entire suite of services pertaining to the Islamic world for both Muslims and non-Muslims in English and Arabic. It provides news and analyses on current affairs, politics, economics, the media, sociology, technology, the arts and other fields; and provides information on the religion of Islam and the Islamic world.

Other services include the ‘Fatwa Corner’, providing online religious advice on a broad range of topics; live forums; online counseling; Islamic directories and even a date converter. A committee of the Islamic world’s leading scholars monitors the site’s content to ensure nothing violates the fixed principles of Islamic law (Shar’ia).

The site has over 11 million pages viewed each month and according to Islam Online it’s the rich and varied content of the portal, as well as its comprehensive list of services, which makes it so popular. “The site is in use round-the-clock. We need to guarantee connectivity. If the portal suffers any degree of downtime, Islam Online cannot provide its premier service,” said Dr Alhorr.

According Islam Online, it required a fail-safe solution user access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was decided the best way to ensure continuity of service was to mirror the existing hosting operation that is outside the region, within the Middle East. “It made perfect sense to replicate our hosting setup where our largest audience base was. We chose Comtrust because not only was it comparable with any hosting provider in the market both in terms of technology and service, but it offered a regional empathy not found anywhere else,” explained Dr Alhorr.

The solution provided by Comtrust saw a replication of Islam Online’s current hosting operation, presently installed outside the region, within the confines of Etisalat’s state-of-the-art data center. “We have created a redundant remote site, here in the UAE, to ensure superior customer service and excellent response time,” said Ahmad Abdulkarim, Julfar, General Manager, Comtrust.

Comtrust says the key requirements of Islam Online revolved around flexibility and security. We customized a solution for Islam Online based on their specific requirements,” said Julfar.
In addition Islam online opted for additional service including back-up management as well as high bandwidth capacity to accommodate the audio and video demands of portal visitors.

Islam Online and Comtrust worked together to ensure a smooth deployment of the running environment. “Both teams tested and fine tuned the setup to ensure maximum portal performance and accessibility,” said Dr Alhorr.

According to Comtrust, working with Islam Online gave it an opportunity to use its expertise promote greater understanding. “This project has had particular meaning for the team at Comtrust. We would like to think that through our hosting expertise we have, in a small way, helped Islam Online in its mission,” concluded Julfar.