Ras Al-Khaimah Government awards eGovernment Project to Microsystems

February 2008, Dubai

In January 2006, the Ras Al-Khaimah Government (RAK) and Microsystems (MSC) concluded an Agreement for the development and implementation of eServices web portal and support for its future expansion plans.

The eGovernment Project for RAK is the vision of HH Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al-Qassimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of RAK. The Crown Prince envisioned that in the Emirate of RAK, fastest growing Emirate in UAE, the strategy must be to adopt modern technologies for enabling better governance and continuous improvement of life-style for its citizen’s.

RAK has been making rapid strides of progress in all sectors, and the emirate’s economic growth in the recent years has been noteworthy. RAK has rightly stepped up its focus on eGovernance and electronic services, which is a reflection of the farsightedness of its leaders, paving the way for a digital society.

Microsystems developed a blue-print for implementing the vision of the Crown Prince and crafted this Enterprise project – which is built around the use of high quality reliable technology and applications that makes governance successful and meaningful for the people and citizen’s to be assured of the most up to date services.

The Project involves also the implementation of RAK Gov Information Network (RGIN) infrastructure– by which various departments and users will be able to use the solution effectively for transacting governance and citizen-good information.

MSC have been selected after a tough competition where many IT companies bid for the project. MSC’s solution was chosen because they provided a thorough understanding of the eBusiness and has outlined a very comprehensive and detailed understanding of similar solutions – this was found most acceptable by the RAK Government.

The eGovernment project is a logical extension of the information Portal that has been implemented by MSC in 2004. The turn-key solution will call for an integration of a complex suite of technologies - the system consists of a suite of servers that manage the web, Metadata, Storage, Content, Security, Application and Database Servers; the database engine is from Oracle and the Portal platform is from Weblogic BEA among Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) which provides the total solution. It’s a Unified solution defining a standard Framework for the eServices;

The project focuses on implementing high quality information and communication technology solutions within RAK eGovernment to enable the delivery of efficient and value-added services to variety of clients.

Development of electronic services is considered a major step to make use of the most advanced and reliable IT solutions in the market to guarantee excellent performance levels. The high scalability, reliability and ease of use of the developed Platform were the major characteristics of the project. Furthermore, the platform used offered enhanced technical specifications which helped quick implementation.


MSC is glad to be a part of RAK’s eGovernance initiatives and we are confident that our expertise will provide RAK government with the required IT support to build its eServices portal more comprehensive and user-friendly, and in the process, putting RAK eGovernment on the eGovernment map of the world.

RAK eGovernment’s portal is divided into three different levels – Public Portal, Secured Portal and Internal Portal. The Public Portal contains all public information available for public users, like tourist services, real estate service, job applications, Etisalat bill payment, driving license renewal and payment of traffic fines.

The Secured Portal serves private users who get access from RAK-Government to use some or all the e-services based on their business categories or any other category determined by RAK Government. The services include, tracing and tracking transactions and documents at RAK Courts, at the Economic Department and the Lands Department; business license renewal, building permit request, electricity connection and disconnection, health certificate service, complaints service and inspection and fines service.

The Internal Portal allows all government employees to have one framework with single sign on facility to get all information they need from a central repository. The portal facilitates sending and receiving emails by integrating the Oracle portal with the Microsoft exchange server. It offers discussion forums, providing a platform for RAK employees to share thoughts and ideas and provides easy access to all applications that are required to serve ‘Quick Wins’.

MSC is in charge of the entire project to implement eGovernment solutions at RAK eGovernment. Prior to the implementation, a specialised team from MSC conducted a study to assess the requirements of the project based on our previous experience of working with other eGovernment projects.

The platform used is BEA WebLogic. Oracle Universal Content Management Platform delivers application infrastructure technology in a single, unified, easy-to-use platform for application development, deployment, and management and allowed enterprises to achieve faster time-to-value for critical business applications using open standards, web services and service-oriented architectures (SOA).

As of September 2007, training for RAK government staff terminated successfully and succeeded by an equally successful soft launch of the Portal in October 2007. So far, the results are very encouraging, and we should expect the official launch in the near future.

For future details, visit (www.rak.ae)