Yusuf Assenjee is the IBM’s Cloud Computing Leader for the Central & West Africa region. In a an interview with Emeka Aginam during the just concluded IBM’s Business Connect 2015 Summit held recently in Lagos, he talked about the unfolding commercial, technical and regulatory landscape for managing data for enterprises in the emerging era of cloud computing.
Giving details of how African Small and Medium sized Enterprises were adopting cloud computing technology in its various variants, he noted that regulators including national and sub-national authorities across the continent should update and upgrade their respective laws and regulatory frameworks in order to ensure appropriate security levels for data protection for firms making use of the cloud.
Excerpts:
State of cloud infrastructure in Nigeria
Yusuf Assenjee
The cloud market in Nigeria is very active. I see that a lot of indigenous and foreign companies, including internet service providers, financial institutions and even companies in the telecoms sector are all in the cloud market and cloud space. So I would say, in Nigeria, the level of cloud maturity is high and awareness of the cloud is also on the rise.
Now the key challenge for business will always have to be about the return on spend for their investment is advanced technologies like data analytics software and cloud computing. So, it’s really about taking maximum advantage of cloud from a business point of view because at the end of the day, the technology is there to support the business.
I however think there is still some work to do here and also in the rest of the African continent. Awareness is starting and people are starting to use cloud but the full benefits of Cloud computing have not been achieved yet; and it will take some time before achieving it. As companies ensure the integrity of their data assets, appropriate regulation also has to be put in place by the authorities even they continue to express the need for local warehousing or storage of the data in-country and also to ensure that firms adhere to the data protection statutes
Security
Security is top on the mind of everyone. I think we could do with more appropriate security, data protection and privacy legislation. I think the big global cloud providers like IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, they have a track record around security. Now the key concern in many countries is about data protection. Once my data is outside the country, do I have full control of it before it becomes an issue. Or can an entity outside the country make a request for that information? I think this is where the concerns are.
And of course, there are different types of data which is not very sensitive, which I think will be easier to put outside of the country on the cloud somewhere and there are some data which is more sensitive and which in this case will be inside the country and this is where we see a lot of talk around the hybrid cloud. This is where IBM is doing a lot of work, with lots of key investments being made.
Key benefits of IBM Cloud solutions
One major benefit that IBM brings on board is really in terms of the agility and speed of setting up an infrastructure environment. For instance, someone goes on our cloud service and requests for server capability, we are able to offer and deliver this infrastructure-as-a-service to the client within hours.
Now contrast this very efficient scenario with someone who decides to order a machine server. By the time that person gets the server and associated equipment, it could take up to three to four weeks. So speed of service delivery is important.
The other point to note is the pay as you use the service. It does not have to be a fixed charge. You can start using the service at any size and grow and the usage fee charging mechanism is dependent on how much you use. The Pay-as-you-Use model and the elasticity of this sort of model is very important in the cloud. It is one of the key components of cloud technology.
How IBM fashions cloud services to suit businesses in Africa
There are offerings like hybrid cloud where we can build a cloud for a customer in-country, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be outside the country; the customer will want to leverage a cloud outside the country. It is possible, but if they want something to be built in-country, we can also do that. In IBM, we have an offering for this. We are talking to a number of customers here who want to go that way and this is perfectly possible.
Regulatory framework for granting transparency in IBM cloud services
We protect the data the customer has entrusted to us. IBM is not going to share the data with other entities. The public sector, and some governments, for instance, wants the data in-country. It is up to the users to make their choice and I think at the end of the day, it is going to be very difficult to control everything. Users have the choice as to where they put their data and the government can come with the regulation but we always see that technology is always one step ahead of regulation and sometimes regulation will have to change and to be updated to suit extant and the fast advancing pace of technology deployments.
IBM’s data security measure in the cloud environment
As a leading technology service provider, IBM has very stringent security frameworks and regulation. We work our stakeholders and clients, and follow the laws and regulations of the countries where we have our data centres. This is an area where IBM has been known to be very much advanced in terms of protecting the infrastructure and whether it is an infrastructure which a customer deploys here which we have ability to protect or it’s an infrastructure within our cloud. We have the capability to handle all sorts of cloud and data management configurations.
How African businesses and government can maximise the benefit of cloud computing.
Being on the cloud eliminates some of the bottlenecks associated with the normal IT infrastructure but you still need service organisation to provide complete solutioning to the customer and this is where IBM’s network of business partners in Nigeria and in the sub-region comes in.
IBM has been around globally for over 100 years and the company understands the Nigerian and African market more than any other technology company. When you have been around for that long, supporting businesses and institutions the market has complete trust in you.
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