As cloud solutions gains ground globally, Business Connexion Limited(BCX), one of Africa's leading provider of Data Centre and Cloud Computing Services, has officially launched its cloud computing services in Lagos.
BCX is a leading integrator of innovative business solutions based on information and communications technology (ICT) with a unique business model that represents the company's approach to configuring and integrating business solutions.
Working in cooperation with approved local resellers to develop regular releases of applications, placed on high priority list of the Nigerian SMEs, BCX's first Data Centre, based in Ikeja, Lagos, will initially offer IT Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Messaging-as-a-Service, SharePoint-as-a-Service and Lync-as-a-Service and Private Cloud to Enterprises and Government.
The Chief Executive Officer of BCX, Mr. Benjamin Mophatlane, who spoke during the launch, stated that the rationale behind using a locally based Data Centre facility is to ensure that customer data is kept in the country and bandwidth cost is kept at a minimum.
He added that it would ensure that applications are not impacted by network latency and a Nigerian based service for Nigerians.
'Nigeria's economy has shown robust growth over the past decade and BCX have noted that key drivers of growth lie squarely in the telecommunications, construction, tourism, manufacturing, Mining, agriculture and wholesale and retail trade, all areas in which our business provides ICT solutions.' he said.
According to Mophatlane, traditional web hosting assumes that customers pay for a fixed amount of storage space and a fixed amount of bandwidth. But the traffic to many websites varies, and storage and bandwidth needs fluctuate over time.
He said, 'For those websites, cloud computing, or cloud hosting, could save them money, as they would pay only for the actual monthly storage and bandwidth usage, and not for excess, unused capacity.
'We want to ensure that we provide Nigerian business big and small with secure, dependable cloud services. We are really excited to launch these offerings in Nigeria, because it is the realisation of our continued growth and development strategy for Africa.'
Also speaking , the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Prof. Cleopas Angaye, stated that cloud computing has become a ubiquitous paradigm in recent times with advances in Information Technology (IT) which has brought about unique challenges and opportunities leading to fundamental changes in a way that information is collected, shared and distributed.
He said, 'Cloud computing has the potential to slash users IT expenditure and enable many services to be developed. Since cloud computing entails wide range of services and solutions, it is imperative to strengthen and improve upon provider cloud computing business solutions. There is need for strong collaborations and partnerships from other professional organisations to seamlessly implement cloud computing solutions and services.'
By Amaka Eze
This Day/14/03/2013