In mid-2020, stc embarked on an ambitious project to pivot away from being a communications service provider (CSP) to become a comprehensive digital service provider (DSP).
Here we take a closer look at this project, the challenges they encountered, and how they leveraged Red Hat products and services towards achieving these transformative business objectives.

About stc
stc is the largest telecommunications operator in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf Cooperation Council region (GCC) in terms of both subscriber base and revenue. Established in 1998, stc has been in operation for more than 20 years.
As the world of telecommunications has evolved, stc has also been evolving, spinning up a series of projects to launch and expand its offerings as a digital service provider.
At inception, stc took over the analog telephone and telegraph divisions of another organization, and has since expanded to offer modern mobile, landline, and television services, as well as a digital payments provider called stc pay.
stc and digital innovation
In June 2020, stc initiated a new strategy to become a world-class digital services leader providing new, innovative customer experiences built with cloud-native applications and microservices.
The goals of this strategy were to:
-
Reduce the time to market for applications focused on improving customer experience.
-
Shift from being a CSP to DSP by building a full-featured platform for hosting microservice applications.
-
Standardize its platform and management solutions to be more efficient and secure, while also reducing costs.
-
Introduce new digital services more quickly, creating new streams of revenue.
This initiative led to a number of different projects that went into production in February 2021, and further expanded in May 2021.
In addition to simplifying and modernizing its business support system (BSS), stc currently hosts four major applications, with plans to migrate up to 20 more in the near future. Beyond that, expansion targets include deploying multiple OpenShift clusters, each expected to host up to 300 applications.
Business and technical challenges
Many projects of this nature encounter a variety of roadblocks, and stc’s was no different, with a variety of business and technical challenges to overcome.
On the business side, stc identified the following as the top issues, which led it to working with Red Hat on this project:
-
Old legacy technology in the form of an inflexible, monolithic application
-
Inability to scale up and out due to a general need for agile systems
-
A need to introduce new digital services at scale
-
Non-standard and higher cost legacy systems
-
Maintaining the largest market share in Saudi Arabia
In addition, stc faced challenges related to feature maturity and a need to integrate with stc’s legacy tools.
stc and Red Hat
After evaluating a variety of options, stc selected Red Hat OpenShift as its platform of choice, basing its decision on a number of factors, including:
-
The robust nature of the Red Hat partner ecosystem
-
Red Hat’s commitment to putting security front and center
-
The large number of microservice applications that are certified and validated for the Red Hat OpenShift platform
-
An extensive array of top-of-the-line DevOps tools
As a result, stc now uses a number of Red Hat products as part of its new technology initiative, with plans to incorporate even more in the future.
As of this writing stc currently uses these Red Hat products:
-
Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation
-
Red Hat Single Sign-On
-
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
In the near future, stc says it plans to incorporate:
Additionally, stc engaged with a variety of Red Hat services and support teams during the development of this project, including:
The results
stc has been able to fundamentally modernize its technology, moving from a monolithic application to a collection of microservices. The company’s infrastructure is also significantly more flexible, giving it the agility it needs to meet growing demands while moving faster and reducing costs. The company also reports that security and compliance have been improved, reducing risks for both itself and its customers.
Through this new initiative, stc has created new revenue-generating streams, introduced new digital services, acquired new key subscribers, all while providing an improved user experience and increasing overall customer satisfaction.
Learn more
You can learn more about Red Hat products and services here:
À propos de l'auteur
Deb Richardson joined Red Hat in 2021 and is a Senior Content Strategist, primarily working on the Red Hat Blog.
Contenu similaire
Parcourir par canal
Automatisation
Les dernières nouveautés en matière d'automatisation informatique pour les technologies, les équipes et les environnements
Intelligence artificielle
Actualité sur les plateformes qui permettent aux clients d'exécuter des charges de travail d'IA sur tout type d'environnement
Cloud hybride ouvert
Découvrez comment créer un avenir flexible grâce au cloud hybride
Sécurité
Les dernières actualités sur la façon dont nous réduisons les risques dans tous les environnements et technologies
Edge computing
Actualité sur les plateformes qui simplifient les opérations en périphérie
Infrastructure
Les dernières nouveautés sur la plateforme Linux d'entreprise leader au monde
Applications
À l’intérieur de nos solutions aux défis d’application les plus difficiles
Programmes originaux
Histoires passionnantes de créateurs et de leaders de technologies d'entreprise
Produits
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat OpenShift
- Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- Services cloud
- Voir tous les produits
Outils
- Formation et certification
- Mon compte
- Assistance client
- Ressources développeurs
- Rechercher un partenaire
- Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog
- Calculateur de valeur Red Hat
- Documentation
Essayer, acheter et vendre
Communication
- Contacter le service commercial
- Contactez notre service clientèle
- Contacter le service de formation
- Réseaux sociaux
À propos de Red Hat
Premier éditeur mondial de solutions Open Source pour les entreprises, nous fournissons des technologies Linux, cloud, de conteneurs et Kubernetes. Nous proposons des solutions stables qui aident les entreprises à jongler avec les divers environnements et plateformes, du cœur du datacenter à la périphérie du réseau.
Sélectionner une langue
Red Hat legal and privacy links
- À propos de Red Hat
- Carrières
- Événements
- Bureaux
- Contacter Red Hat
- Lire le blog Red Hat
- Diversité, équité et inclusion
- Cool Stuff Store
- Red Hat Summit