CASE STUDY
Zain Sudan taps into the cloud in just 18 days, replacing Ericsson charging
Key Facts
- 01 Customer
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Zain Sudan
- 02 Product
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Totogi
Charging-as-a-Service - 03 Use case
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Charging migration +
Disaster recovery - 04 Systems
-
OCS
AWS public cloud
Existing OSS / BSS - 05 Time frame
-
18 days
In brief
Zain Sudan, a subsidiary of Zain Group and the pioneering mobile operator in Sudan, serves 23 million customers. During a period of civil unrest, it lost connectivity to its on-premise Ericsson charging system and could not restore service, putting roughly $12 million in revenue at risk every week.
Working with Totogi, Zain Sudan went live with Totogi Charging-as-a-Service on the AWS public cloud in 18 days. The new environment completely replaced Ericsson and stood up disaster recovery and production charging together, keeping customers connected and operations running.
Impact
18 days from contract to a live charging environment on AWS, fully replacing Ericsson
$12M in weekly revenue at risk while service was down
Up to 80% lower total cost of ownership
Zero on-premise disaster recovery infrastructure required
Partnering with Totogi allowed us to not only navigate this crisis but also emerge stronger, keeping our customers connected and operations uninterrupted. Totogi’s innovative technology, combined with an unwavering commitment from their team, has been pivotal in connecting people across Sudan when they needed it the most.
Challenge
Zain Sudan hit a critical failure during a period of civil unrest. The operator lost connectivity to its on-premise Ericsson charging system and could not restore service, leaving its charging function dark at the worst possible moment.
The outage exposed deeper weaknesses in the existing infrastructure. Disaster recovery ran on costly on-premise hardware, and the architecture gave the team little flexibility to fail over or recover quickly. With service down, roughly $12 million in revenue was at risk every week.
Zain needed a solution that could restore service fast, guarantee business continuity, and cut operating costs, all while staying compliant with local regulations in a volatile environment. A like-for-like rebuild of the same on-premise model would repeat the same exposure it had just been caught by.
Solution
Zain Sudan first approached Totogi to see whether a public cloud disaster recovery solution could meet its needs. As the technical assessment advanced, it became clear that Totogi Charging-as-a-Service could do more than back up the incumbent. It could replace it.
Totogi worked with Zain’s technical and business teams on a three-step plan: assess Charging-as-a-Service on AWS as a public cloud disaster recovery option, move the customer base off Ericsson onto Totogi, and bring the core network onto AWS so production and disaster recovery run from one cloud site.
Totogi Charging-as-a-Service is serverless, cloud-native, and multi-tenant, built on the AWS public cloud. New tenants come up in minutes on a pay-for-what-you-use model, and continuous deployment with automated testing means new capabilities arrive with no manual upgrades.
Business
impact
Totogi Charging-as-a-Service went live in 18 days. The new environment completely replaced the Ericsson charging system and runs fully on AWS, turning a crisis response into a permanent move to the public cloud.
Zain Sudan now has guaranteed business continuity through public cloud failover, protecting the operator against the revenue leakage that a charging outage causes and supporting financial stability. Retiring the on-premise model removes the hardware Zain used to buy for disaster recovery, and the operator reports up to 80% lower total cost of ownership.
Charging-as-a-Service integrates with Zain’s existing OSS and BSS, so the transition landed with minimal subscriber disruption. The result is a cost-effective disaster recovery posture that keeps customers connected and revenue flowing, even in a volatile environment.
About Zain Sudan
Zain Sudan is the pioneering telecom operator in Sudan and a subsidiary of Zain Group, a leading mobile and data services operator across the Middle East and North Africa. Zain Sudan serves 23 million customers and is a key mobile services provider in the region.