Despite being the fastest growing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on the continent of Africa, Nigeria may be witnessing depletion as it has been revealed that most Nigerians resident in the country are ignorant of Cloud Computing, ITRealms Online can authoritatively report.
Broadly, Cloud Computing could be described as using of servers hosted on the Internet for computational purposes. Thus, Cloud Computing vendors build Internet-based accessible data centers and offer computing time to customers, which could be individual or corporate. Typically, customers deploy virtualized Operating System (OS) images onto cloud vendor servers; more or less like offering computational time on the Internet.
An investigation carried out by ITRealms Online with emphasize on core Information Technology (IT) application among professionals has proved that even those, who should know like webmasters, computer technicians and Desktop Publishing Analysts were mostly ignorant of this new sensation in the computing world.
In other words, Nigeria may be in for another round of digital divide in its polity.
ITRealms Online investigations across the aforementioned group of ‘computing experts’ showed that they were totally unaware and its acceptability with in terms of adaptation and usage may really take some time to come in this part of the world.
At first when the question was posed to them, the reactions have been ‘what is it? Is it a brand new brand of PCs and what does it work?’
When asked if they have not heard about Cloud Computing, the answer was ‘Yes’ for those who took part in the exercise, numbering 15 ‘computing experts.’
Although the chief research officer and senior vice president at analyst firm, IDC, Mr. John Gantz, was recently quoted as saying economic crisis would force some companies to make technological changes they may not have made.
Some of these alternative technologies, experts listed to include software-as-a-service (SaaS), Open Source software and Cloud Computing, all of which go against the business models of the tech old guard or at best the proprietary methods.
IDC at a recent event in Lagos, gave boost to Cloud Computing evolution, saying that the usage of this platform has continued to rise. Stressing that its recent survey, revealed for instance, that 83.6 per cent of respondents agreed that it is easy and fast to deploy, 81.5 per cent opt for it because they can pay only for what they use (Pay-As-You-Use).
Additionally, IDC revealed that part of the benefits is that it affords companies basically to have a low monthly payments, because they are likely to experience less in-house IT staff and associated costs. While it offers the latest functionalities, encouraging more standardized IT, its sharing systems module makes information exchange easier.
On the other hand, some of those who are aware of Cloud Computing features but are still skeptical raise some challenging issues, comprising security, availability, performance, hard to integrate with in-house IT system because there is lack in the ability to customize, even as fear of it costing more in the future hovers.
Also, notable challenge issue was that it may prove difficult to bring back in-house; that is, if one is already using Cloud Computing and decides to change his or her mind, just as not enough major suppliers yet available in developing countries like Nigeria.
However, IDC outlined that major shift to application modernization and consolidation with a view to data center efficiencies and better IT business alignment.
“Greater focus on application rationalization, as a follow up to the notable investment in packaged applications of the past several years, particularly with companies with multiple African operations. Focus will be on the creation of unified application environments that support business flexibility and agility,” part of the report revealed.
SaaS, for instance, is expected to soar in countries like South Africa, where the large number of Small and Medium Business (SMB) pools on the back of decreasing operational costs.
Equally, experts said that this new evolution in computing technology that uses far-away servers for data storage and management, enable the device to use smaller and more efficient chips that consume less energy than standard computers.
The creation of awareness on this platform could aid large companies using computer, even as experts were emphatic that it could get more boost when the Internet access is available and accessible with ease.
They noted that lack of constant public electric power supply may muddle this dream up, hence leaving Nigeria again on ‘catch-up’ road, whilst South Africa.
The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) and Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN) officials were silent on deployment and adaptation of Cloud Computing in the country, as at the time of going to the press.
Experts, pointed out that as the eco-systems shift online; new tools, new players and a new generation are growing, mostly with many vendors getting on board and building out comforting capabilities, the best for Nigerian IT professionals, especially the youths is to be involve in Cloud Computing so as not only to be viable, but also, to sustain their careers before it becomes too late.
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
1 comment:
Considering the time that this article was published, it is disheartening to note that there is still meagre awareness about the IT revolution. Please do not relent. The onus lies on you (IT professionals) to enlighten our people.
Post a Comment