Cloud computing can help Nigeria overcome infrastructure challenges

Posted by Mgbenka at Tuesday, April 03, 2012 |

cost by taking to cloud computing, even as government could deliver more to Nigerians through the cloud.  

Oluwaseun Ayantokunreports:

What is cloud computing?
Essentially, cloud computing is a method of providing business with business applications and technologies in a very simple, quick and low-cost manner.
Clouds come in different forms: there are public clouds where companies like Oracle will provide business and technologies and services to customers. They could go to our website, register their interest, find out the service, subscription and the applications will be available online within minutes. So, you can imagine the tremendous and fantastic leap it is for businesses because they can utilise these applications very very quickly within a short time frame compared to the traditional way which involves acquiring hardware, software, installation, testing  which consume more time and resources. So, it is an advantageous solution for big and small businesses.

Why are we talking about cloud computing?
 Well, because it’s one of the most significant innovations in ICT industry for years and it’s what we want our customers to take advantage of because we believe it will help them achieve great efficiency in their businesses as obtainable in other economies in other parts of the world.

How do businesses in Nigeria take advantage of this? How do you make it available in Nigeria?
I think that was one of the messages in my presentation today. First, business owners have to identify what their business strategy is and the technology to adopt, asking and answering the questions: what is the goal of the business? How do you intend to grow the business?
Once, you’ve established the goal, you can then begin to understand how cloud computing can support those objectives. And then you have the most important question: do they want to adopt cloud computing to reduce the cost of their IT acquisition or do they want to adopt it to create a business utility?

A good example might be using cloud computing to incorporate an acquisition into your business. You don’t necessarily have to merge things; you can start off in the cloud. I think cloud computing helps you get to the market faster without the huge financial implications.
You also need to understand what you want to get from the cloud before you go for it. Then be sure of your readiness to move into that.
You need to understand your IT environment. If I’m using a public cloud, how do I make those applications my business applications. Also, the cloud places much more responsibility on business use of IT. Then, there should also be skills to use business applications from the cloud the right way. In Oracle, we help businesses tackle all these questions.

Specifically, what does Oracle have for the banking industry, oil and gas, etc in Nigeria ?
We’ve found that banks and many big companies in the oil and gas sector prefer having private clouds built for them. In Oracle, we offer services to those that are interested in private clouds just as we have public clouds which may be subscribed to and benefited from. Over the last five years, our company has made acquisitions from industries with specific applications for banking, telecommunications and so on. And so, we can offer applications specifically for core banking, telecom, and so on, services like billing and many others that are critical to businesses. We have the expertise also. What we’d be doing is working with large companies to make those key systems available in private clouds.

What is your confidence that cloud computing will gain ground in Nigeria ?
I understand that there are lots of SMEs in Nigeria . And many more people want to start one business or the other. In terms of lack of adequate infrastructure, Nigeria ’s case isn’t that strange. There are countries in parts of Europe without sufficient legacy infrastructure and what have you. They are now taking advantage of cloud computing for economic growth. So, it is an opportunity for businesses in this country to make use of cloud computing and we’re confident that they will see it as the way to go.

What do you have for the government of Nigeria ?
I think cloud is a great opportunity for the government of Nigeria to utilise. For me, it is a question of using innovations to drive down cost. It can help the government to offer online services to the people of this country very very rapidly without so much capital expenditure.

What security measure do you have in place against hacking and frauds?
We’ve worked with the British Government to provide what we call “G-Cloud” through which many e-government services are now available for millions of people. The potential for fraud in a system like that is very huge. So, we have provided the government with our identity management products to provide secured authentification, single sign on and fraud prevention online. This can be replicated in Nigeria .
It is all about a centralised government services with a single portal, strong security and strong integration of different systems.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/tele-info/38620-cloud-computing-can-help-nigeria-overcome-infrastructure-challenges