Telecommunications operators in Nigeria are seeking greener pastures in cloud computing, judging by the massive financial resources ploughed into data centres infrastructure over the past two years.
A recent report from market research firm, Markets and Markets, reveals that the cloud market is expected to grow to $121 billion by 2015, a 26 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from the $37 billion value in 2010.
Analysts say telcos are angling for a piece of the pie in view of the lull in voice penetration, which is compelling them to seek alternative sources of revenue. ‘Cloud computing’ refers to the use of computing resources (hardware and software) delivered as a service over the internet.
According to market observers, banks, oil and gas, and other multi-national firms require high-speed, secure digital storage facilities, and are moving away from running their own in-house computer centres towards outsourcing this business to commercial operators.
“To build a data centre requires a significant amount of Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and expertise. To the right standards of reliability, it probably takes about 18-24 months to build this kind of infrastructure”, Ayotunde Coker, managing director at Rack Centre Limited, said
According to him, “business don’t have time to do that. We enable business access to this world-class facility for their IT. They can be operational within weeks, and it allows them to put the CAPEX that would have been spent in what is not a core competence for them into the front-end of their business where their core competence is and where their money will be better spent”, he further explained.
The country is witnessing an unprecedented rise in the number of independent data centre operators in country. Rack Centre, MDX-i Lekki Data Centre owned by MainOne, CWG (Computer Warehouse Group) Data Centre, amongst others, have all come on stream in recent times.
Industry observers are of the view that Nigeria is rapidly expanding its Information Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure to power the fast-growing dot com and online banking enterprises.
“The central bank is seeking effective data storage and is mandating banks to keep their data in-country. Banks generally will be one of the main drivers for data centres, not just for banks but for stockbrokers, insurance firms”, said Rex Mafiana, chief executive officer (CEO) at FPG Technologies
& Solutions Limited.
Global data centre operators have flocked to the Nigerian market, particularly since 2011, with the likes of Google’s cloud platform aggressively marketing their services to corporations.
Microsoft, US based firm, launched its global Office 365 cloud solution in Nigeria in June 2012.
Dell’s global CEO, on the other hand, visited Nigeria in July 2012 in a bid to promote Dell servers or local data warehousing initiatives.
A world-class data warehouse is estimated to cost between $20 million and $30 million. Etisalat Nigeria, United Arab Emirates (UAE) based operator, has built a data centre in Abuja to improve its quality of service.
Several months ago, Globacom, Nigeria’s national carrier, built a 2,000 square feet data centre in Lagos. This robust data ecosystem would allow the firm provide cloud services to a plethora of industry verticals.
Also, MTN Nigeria, the nation’s largest mobile operator by subscriber numbers, has deployed a high-grade data centre of collocation and hosting space in Lagos.
