While the level of maturity and awareness in cloud computing in Nigeria and the rest of the African countries are improving, the Cloud Leader, IBM Central W/Africa, Yusuf Assenjee in an interview with Technology Journalists at the just concluded IBM Business Connect 2015 held in Lagos said that key concern in many countries is around data protection.

Noting that the big global cloud providers have a track record around security, he said that Nigeria needs to have regulatory framework around data protection.

Excerpt

State of cloud infrastructure in Nigerian

In Nigeria, the cloud market is very active. I see a lot of local companies, manage service provider and even Telcos are all in the cloud market and cloud space. So I would say, in Nigeria, the level of maturity and awareness are there.

Now its really about taking maximum advantage of cloud from a business point of view that another challenge, because at the end of the day, the technology is there to support the business better.

I think there is still some work to do here and in the rest of the African country. Awareness is starting and people are starting to use the cloud but the full benefit of it has not been achieved yet, it will take some time before achieving it . And also the number of regulation in terms of data protection, data to be resident in- country need to be worked out as well. Regulation has to be put in place.

Security

Security is top on the mind of everyone. I think we need security, data protection and privacy. 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 entity outside the country make a request for that information? I think this is where the concern is.

And of course, there are different type 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.

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 its doesn’t necessarily have to be outside of 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 wants 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, government want 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 beyond regulation and sometimes regulations have to change to suit advancing technology.

You can put your data in a country as long as the country has a regulation which is as stringent as the one we have in this country. This country need to have regulation around data protection like the one we have.

IBM’s measures in providing security in the cloud

We have very stringent security framework regulation . We follow a lot of regulation in 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 its an infrastructure within our cloud. We have a specialist handling security.

Key benefits of IBM cloud solutions

The key benefit is really in terms of the speed of setting up an infrastructure. For instance, someone goes on our cloud service and ask for infrastructure in server, we can make it available in four hours for the person to start working.

Now contrast that with someone who wants to order a machine server. By the time that person gets it, it can take three to four weeks. So speed is important. The other thing is the pay as you use. It does not have to be a fixed charge. You can start at any size and grow and the charging mechanism is dependent on how much you use. The pay as you use model and its elasticity is very important in the cloud. It is one of the key cloud component.

How businesses and government in Africa can maximise the benefit of cloud computing

Cloud computing is computing, whether it on the cloud or its on premise you need services around it to make it work. Being on the cloud eliminates some of the bottleneck of the normal IT infrastructure but you still need service organisation to give complete solution to the customer and this is where IBM network or business partners in Nigeria and in the region come in.