Dagang Net Completes 2nd Phase of Technology Upgrade

Published by The Star (Maritime)

Dagang Net Technologies Sdn Bhd (Dagang Net), the operator of the national e-trade facilitation service “Sistem Maklumat Kastam - DagangNet” (SMK-DagangNet), has completed the second phase of its technology upgrade plan for a world-class, reliable and efficient nationwide network to expedite commerce through all major airports and seaports in the country.

Under the first phase of the technology upgrade, it focused on hardware, networked infrastructure and managed services.

The second phase involved the upgrading of software platforms that include the messaging and database engines.

The new software technology is mainly provided by Axway, a global supplier of Enterprise Application and Business-to-Business Integra-tion (EAI and B2Bi) software solutions.

Through this collaborative effort with Axway, Dagang Net, expects to further boost its service reliability and efficiency of its far-reaching nationwide SMK-DagangNet network which currently handles RM1.8bil worth of electronic Customs duty payments and 40 million electronic document transactions annually.

Set to go live by the end of this month, Dagang Net’s new messaging and document exchange engine will be powered by Axway’s best-of-breed products - Axway Integration Broker (XIB), Axway File Broker (XFB) and Axway Sentinel.

Known for its powerful integration and synchronisation technology, XIB will provide real-time, scalable and powerful information transformation to help SMK-DagangNet evolve into a 24/7, fail-safe, fault-tolerant network.

It allows the entire network information system to remain seamless and enables smooth and continuous inter-communication between its customers and government agencies.

Equipped with advanced file transfer and exchange management features, XFB allows the secure transmission of data across the Internet and provides automated and inter-application dataflow management allowing end-to-end acknowledgements from every partner in Dagang Net’s trading community.
Axway’s Business Activity Monitoring system, the Sentinel, will monitor, supervise and track data flows from end to end and is able to provide advanced alerts with options for standby management and automatic calls to phones, faxes or SMS.

It serves as an IT surveillance solution that tracks both technical and business processes circuits providing that “double vision” essential to enable Dagang Net to monitor and measure the broad scope of company transactions continuously, so that critical business decisions can be rapidly taken.

The deployment of these world-class monitoring and control tools will enable Dagang Net to deliver more reliable, efficient, fast and secure document exchange services.

Axway’s software engines will also enable Dagang Net to store Malaysia’s trade-related information and deliver these critical business and statistical information to the trade industry.
This collaborative effort with Axway represents the second phase of Dagang Net’s major technology upgrade plan involving mainly software deployment to strengthen the Dagang Net’s portion of the existing SMK-DagangNet nationwide network..

The SMK-DagangNet, which is the electronic cargo clearing and duty payment systems linked to the Royal Malaysian Customs and Excise Department’s systems, will be upgraded over the next three years at a total cost of RM20mil.

Worth over RM11mil, the first stage of the revamp was completed in July and it involved mainly new hardware and network infrastructure.

Dagang Net had also migrated to TIME Quantum Technology’s new data centre facility that contains world-class infrastructure and comprehensive value-added facilities offering a 24/7 operation and packed with state-of-the-art equipment and advanced network connectivity to support Dagang Net’s mission-critical activities.

“This has always been a part of Dagang Net’s crucial investment and relentless drive and push to attain leading edge and world-class levels of service excellence that far exceeds customer expectations.

“Our ultimate goal is to provide our customers with a one-stop centre that offers the most reliable and wide range of e-trade facilitation services at almost “zero-fault” levels, which would in turn enable our customers to unleash their full potential at the forefront of international trade,” said Dagang Net chief executive officer Saifol Bahri Shamlan.

He said sharp growth in international trade ties in with Dagang Net’s plans to periodically retool and upgrade its technology capabilities every three or four years so that it can deploy the latest state-of-the-art technology across its entire operations in order to respond to the anticipated and evolving needs of its customers.

“We are aware that our leadership position in the provision of e-commerce services is dependent upon our ability to consistently provide reliable and efficient trade facilitation services that our customers can rely on virtually wherever and whenever they are needed.

“These two significant investments have demonstrated our commitment to our customers and it will be repeated periodically to maintain DagangNet’s global standard of service excellence,” said Saifol.

Besides Axway, Dagang Net has also appointed global leaders such as Hewlett-Packard, a leading provider of networking, database and operational services, to power its core processing systems.