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In the past few weeks the issue of Nigeria’s role in adoption of cloud or otherwise came into focus at different fora. One of those fora was at the presentation of African Cloud Report in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and follow up report by Cisco Systems.
ITRealms reports that at the Addis Ababa presentation, which incidentally was delivered on behalf of a team of researchers on the continent by a Nigerian notable, Mr. Fola Odufuwa of Research ICT Africa for his team namely Alison Gilwald and Mpho Moyo of Research ICT Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.
Dwelling on “Cloud Experience in Africa: Emerging Trends and Perspectives” the presentation made to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) seminar on Cloud Computing and e-Government, Mr. Odufuwa noted that though a number of South African-based companies like Dimension Data and Internet Solutions seem to be competing aggressively to provide services on the continent, Nigeria assumes the investment destination for Information and Communication Technology-inclined investments.
He told ITRealms that locating cloud computing in the ICT ecosystem showed that users including consumers and citizens have been placed at the centre of the ecosystem and factors such as price and quality of service are a measure of access and affordability of services provided.
Cloud computing, for instance, he said to ITRealms is located within the broader ICT ecosystem as cloud services are delivered via an internet connection.
Stressing that the reliability of cloud computing is critically dependent upon the availability of underlying broadband-driven infrastructure.
To distinguish cloud services and cloud-based services, Odufuwa and his cohort defined cloud services as those provided and utilised ‘on demand at any time, through any access network, using any connected devices that use cloud computing technologies’ according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Explaining that cloud services utilise software and applications that are held in the cloud which are not on the users’ own devices. Pointing out that these are used for internal administration by cloud user or for the management of service delivery to end-users and cited an instance with the customer relations management.
On the other hand, Odufuwa said, cloud based services include mass market applications such as Facebook and YouTube, to name a few, consisting of user data that are then posted on the cloud.
“With the proliferation of mobile phones, the expansion of mobile broadband networks and the increased access to the internet via the mobile phone; the delivery of mobile based cloud services is becoming important in the African context,” he said.
He further told ITRealms that types of cloud providers include mere ‘Cloud Providers’ whose primary source of cloud offerings is to “create, configure, run and distribute services” as narrated by Kushida et al.
He also said that mainly global Information Technology (IT) brands, most of which are present on the continent, offering some cloud solution in most markets, with Nigeria assuming a hub status after South Africa.
According to him, continental IT giants, have begun to play in this space as aggregators and system Integrators, which has been further subdivided into continental and indigenous vendors and system integrators, who provide “boots-on-the-ground” for Cloud Providers by managing the cloud migration process.
“They match their knowledge of global cloud computing technologies with local needs,” he said.
For some, he revealed that they now offer own solutions as Cloud Brokers, whereas third party service providers acting as intermediaries between end-users, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and system integrators.
On the emerging trends in Africa, the Research ICT Africa team disclosed to ITRealms that cloud-computing is in its early growth stages, as large corporate enterprises are the early adopters. Hence, market activity across Africa appears supply-side driven rather than demand-side driven.
“Exception is South Africa where demand is arising from the private sector,” Odufuwa declared, underscoring the fact that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the public sector without legacy IT assets could be greatest beneficiaries. Just as cloud providers are mostly global United States-based players with some local presence across Africa.
South African-based companies seem to dominate the cloud service providers on the continent with the likes of Dimension Data and Internet Solutions contesting vigorously.
In addition, he revealed to ITRealms that local IT providers and telcos typically compete with global brands within the cloud market. Just as public sector usage is limited though the governments of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria are beginning to explore public cloud solutions.
He listed some drivers of cloud computing in Africa to comprise suppliers, vendors and system integrators as well as infrastructure providers, particularly the mobile operators and submarine cum fibre optic companies; thereby enabling Internet on mobile phones, low bandwidth applications, and social networking.
He cited that in South Africa, cloud uptake is being driven by private sector demand. While African telcos and mobile operators are leveraging existing infrastructure to deliver cloud services in order to diversify their revenue streams.
Trends in Nigeria:
Cloud trends in Nigeria, he disclosed to ITRealms as being in early growth, though driven by global IT companies offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
ITRealms gathered that Cory Janssen of Techopedia.com defined IaaS as a service model that delivers computer infrastructure on an outsourced basis to support enterprise operations. Typically, IaaS provides hardware, storage, servers and data center space or network components, which may also include software. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is also known as Hardware as a Service (HaaS).
Techopedia explains Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Janssen emphasised that an IaaS provider offers policy-based services and is responsible for housing, operating and maintaining the equipment it provides for a client, this is because clients usually pay on a per-use or utility computing basis.
Equally for the software as a service (SaaS), which is sometimes referred to as “on-demand software” supplied by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) or ‘Application-Service-Providers’ which is a software delivery model in which software and associated data are centrally hosted on the cloud.
Also, the platform as a service is a category of cloud computing services that provides a computing platform and a solution stack as a service. Along with software as a service and infrastructure as a service, it is a service model of cloud computing.
However, Odufuwa affirmed that larger corporations, and to some extent, the public sector implementing variants of the private cloud. While the mobile operators also launch often cloud offerings targeted at the SME market.
He listed some main local players to include Computer Warehouse, Datagroup IT, and Business Connexion. Odufuwa maintained that innovation is real-time cloud solution being implemented by IBM and Sproxil that enable drug manufacturers in Nigeria to prevent counterfeiting.
Ethiopia:
ITRealms confirms that cloud trends in Ethiopia indicates that country’s movement towards the cloud is at a very early stage, as efforts to promote cloud computing is largely government-driven.
“The government is working with the Republic of Korea to upgrade data centers using technology supplied by Samsung. Recently, there has been significant investment by the government in the telecoms sector: National rollout of 16,000 kilometers (km) of fibre has extended broadband access to about 40 per cent of the population,” he said.
The country, he further revealed is connected to international cables through neighboring Djibouti and Sudan, and plans to link to the EASSy cable through Kenya ongoing.
Major obstacle to cloud deployment, he said, is limited competition as the government holds a monopoly on the communications market in Ethiopia, whereas the Broadband usage is not widespread.
“At the end of 2012, there were about 221,000 broadband users, representing 0.25 per cent of the population, according to Ethiopian Telecom,” he said.
Ghana:
In Ghana, despite that the revolution of cloud in the country is still at infancy, it has over 20 providers - many of which are local companies who provide “boots–on-the-ground” for global cloud providers.
“Others are pan-African mainly South African based companies. Cloud services offered is mainly IaaS and PaaS,” he reiterated.
Ghana, he affirmed is one of Africa’s most liberalised ICT markets with 6 mobile operators; all of which offer data services based on Third Generation (3G) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) platforms.
More than 20 companies actively provide broadband Internet access, led by Vodafone.
Companies that provide hosting, managed services and data centres such as Internet Ghana, Ostec, Ecoband Networks, Computer Information Systems, among others, have the potential to grow their businesses into the cloud.
Kenya yet to develop CaaS:
As for cloud services offerings in Kenya, the Research ICT Africa group said that cloud services are evolving and supply-side driven, though competition is emerging between local and international companies IaaS CaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
KDN, MTN Business and Safaricom Ltd, he said, operate in this space, even as KDN has the largest private sector optic fibre network of 7000km, KDN and provides data centre services.
On the other hand, government of Ghana has built its own data centres and is in the process of building other centres for public access as (PPPs). With Safaricom, in partnership with an integrator Seven Seas Technologies offers public PaaS- servers, storage, backup and operating system.
In the 2011 market entry which changed market dynamics as potential users now explore local clouds as a feasible alternative to foreign clouds.
Range of the platform is however limited to one operating system environment, with the key actors targeting the market include Pamoja Cloud Services, a SEACOM’s value added services business unit, offering content aggregation and associated services.
Xtranet, in addition allows customers to connect own software to their servers. Kenyan Cloud equally provides mail, data recovery and storage services. At the same time as Sofgen launched the Temenos T24 cloud-based MFI banking software solution entered the market.
Communications as a Service (CaaS), however, is yet undeveloped and emerging in Kenya.
Cloud in Tunisia:
The growth in the telecommunications sector, the team told ITRealms, was accelerated by (a) liberalisation at the turn of millennium (b) the political transition of the 14th of January, 2011 which saw the end to censorship and has resulted in freedom of expression, (c) amendments to the legal and regulatory framework in 2013.
These landmarks, the researchers described as having opened the market to the deployment of new technological innovations such as cloud computing.
Since 2011, Odufuwa said, cloud providers began to focus on the Tunisian market, especially Microsoft, Oracle and OEMs including Hewlett Packard (HP) are increasingly advertising cloud offerings.
While several cloud providers have emerged within Tunisia that provide public clouds, with local players comprising the Tunisia Telecom, Smart host and Axelaris.
Services of other international operators like Amazon are hardly used in Tunisia due to the foreign exchange regulations; whereas the universities have commenced introduction of courses and researches in this area.
South Africa aware of cloud-computing:
Odufuwa’s group revealed to ITRealms that growing adoption as various sized companies become acutely aware of the benefits of cloud-computing in South Africa. Stressing that out of 100 large companies in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) corporations interviewed recently by World Wide Worx, 46 per cent were already using cloud computing, mostly the private cloud as companies still have security concerns about moving on the public cloud.
With these obvious advantages, he said, some large enterprises are constrained by governance rules that prevent them from moving some of their applications into the public cloud as the location of the servers remain unknown as required by law or company policy.
Main players including Microsoft, Google, AWS, Salesforce.com, MTN Business, Dimension Data, Internet Solutions and Telkom, thus Iaas, PaaS, SaaS are seen as established in South Africa, while CaaS is however conceptually challenged.
Cisco and Wide Worx connection:
Latest survey by key finding of the Cloud in Africa: Reality Check 2013 research study¹, released last December by World Wide Worx and Cisco made available to ITRealms showed that while South Africa currently leads the continent in Cloud uptake, it is about to be overtaken dramatically by no other than Nigeria.
The study also showed that in 2013, 50 per cent South African medium and large businesses are using Cloud services; while a slightly lower proportion, 48 per cent are using the Cloud in Kenya. Nigeria lag’s substantially behind, with only 36 per cent of businesses currently using the Cloud.
However, a significant 44 per cent of Nigerian businesses expressed optimism of going Cloud before the end of this year, 2014, which is expected to soar the total in Nigeria to 80 per cent by December 31, 2014. And when compared to 24 per cent of organisations in Kenya and only 16 per cent in South Africa, who said they will be taking up Cloud within this year, the difference is clear.
Cisco’s Vice President for Africa, Mr. David Meads, told ITRealms that Cloud computing is the next big step in the evolution of computing and the Internet. Stressing, “The broadband revolution sweeping across Africa and the continent’s reputation for innovation add up to tremendous appetite for services that will drive this evolution. Looking ahead, the Internet of Everything represents the largest online trend today. As more people, things and devices connect to the Internet in Africa, more data from more places will be introduced across corporate and service provider networks, which will open up new opportunities and increased demand for the Cloud.”
And for the Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx, “The fact that no one is expressing doubt about the reliability of the Cloud means that the final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Now the Cloud becomes real in Africa.”
Conclusion:
The continent is definitely making some progress and its believed that by end of 2015 the story will certainly be different with increased yearning for cloud and spurring of cloud-computing. The aforementioned scenes across Africa show mostly early adoptions with Nigeria due to the velocity of revolution in the telecom industry, gradually positioning self as second to none in Africa.
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