Ministry of Works focus on defense
The Ministry of Works in Bahrain is a critical government agency responsible for the development and maintenance of public infrastructure throughout the kingdom. Their mandate encompasses the planning, construction, and ongoing management of essential civil infrastructure including roads, bridges, government buildings and sanitation networks.
As the MoW’s work touches every citizen’s daily life while simultaneously safeguarding national interests through infrastructure, they are indispensable to the kingdom’s continued prosperity and stability. MoW also plays a strategic role in national defense by incorporating resilience and security measures into infrastructure design to safeguard critical national assets.
Their defense efforts include:
- Infrastructure for strategic use ensuring rapid movement of defense forces and access to specific locations (borders, coastlines and military bases)
- Military Infrastructure development & maintenance (military bases, training centers)
- Emergency preparedness and resilience—handles flood and water damage protection—ensures infrastructure is resilient to natural disasters and conflict
- Strategic urban planning—minimizes vulnerabilities and maintain strategic layouts for optimal defense and emergency response operations.
Infrastructure
The MoW IT team manages the organization’s cloud infrastructure, which includes AWS servers, storage systems, networking, security, and cloud services. They ensure the stability, availability, and scalability of the infrastructure to support the ministry’s digital services and day-to-day operations. The team also plans and implements technology upgrades and works closely with other departments to ensure their IT needs are met securely and efficiently.
Their environment consists of:
- Two AWS accounts (Production and Test environments)
- Over 70 AWS instances
- Various AWS services including Storage gateways, RDS, and Amazon FSx ONTAP
- An on-premises headquarters datacenter with VMware host servers
- Four physical branch offices with their own VMware infrastructure
This hybrid environment supports critical government services, requiring robust backup and disaster recovery capabilities to ensure continuity of operations.
Challenge
As the Ministry expanded its cloud footprint, they faced challenges scaling their backup and disaster recovery procedures. Being relatively new to the cloud environment, they needed a solution with clear documentation and structured processes.
They were looking for a tool that provided the backup flexibility and ease of management they required. They also needed a solution available through AWS Marketplace for streamlined procurement and billing. Ideally, the backup solution needed had to protect diverse workloads across MoW’s hybrid environment.
Solution
The IT team successfully implemented N2W’s backup and recovery solution to protect their AWS cloud environment. With a moderately complex infrastructure supporting both civilian and defense-related operations, the Ministry found that N2W provided the superior flexibility, management capabilities, and cost control they were looking for. The implementation has reduced manual workload, improved recovery times, and provided peace of mind for critical governmental operations.
Results
- Cost Control: “Costs are completely transparent and budget friendly”—N2W provides predictable pricing through AWS Marketplace, making budgeting more straightforward.
- Multi-Management: “The ability to manage many AWS environments with one license has greatly simplified administration and reduced complexity.”
- Operational Efficiency: “It reduced the workload on our IT team, as the automated backup and recovery processes meant less manual effort and faster resolution compared to traditional methods.”
- Peace of Mind: “N2W has helped us secure data and recover smoothly whenever needed, allowing us to focus on other critical tasks.”
- Future-Ready: The Ministry appreciates that N2W “keeps updated rapidly with new and important features,” ensuring the solution evolves alongside their needs.
