What Cloud Computing means to the future of

organisations – A perspective from Africa

By

Chandima Miyanadeniya

CIO Aon SA

Drivers 1. Technology drivers • Availability of High Speed Network links to Africa • Petabyte storage with advances in Nano technology • Terabit switching capacities – Optical switch fabric 2. Compliance • Information security • Audit Requirements and certifications • Control and governance 3. Cost Drivers • Base infrastructure costs and Operating cost containment • Consumer demand for usage based costing models 4. Agility • Quick Deployment – 10- 15 minutes per server deployment on the cloud. • Flexibility in carving out CPU, RAM and Storage requirements

Link Speeds to Africa

Current Africa Capacities

• 15 Tb/sec West coast

• 10 Tb/sec East coast

Fibre footprint into the interior of Africa

Limitations/Challenges

• Internet/Network capacities to consumers is still highly priced in most parts of Africa.

• Latency limitations effecting user experience in parts of Africa for Cloud services hosted in Europe/USA

• Cloud infrastructure in Africa still limited due to cost , limited user base and base infrastructure limitations

• Appreciation of Cloud service benefits by technology leaders

and where to use Private , Public or Hybrid Cloud Strategies

• Limitations on liability offered by Cloud providers in terms of data loss, breach, corruption may not be sufficient

Current Opportunities for adoption

• Messaging and Unified Communication platforms – Email , Fax, SMS, Presence, whiteboard, Voice

• Internet based commerce and B2B strategies

• Marketing campaigns/ advertising

• Short term environments for testing and project work with under 24 month life cycles

• DR and backup environments

What it means to the future of organisations

• Rapid E-commerce delivery to the market

• Internet based marketing campaigns will be easier to adopt

• Adoption of UC on the cloud by firms will drive workforce mobility and staff effectiveness up

• ICT staff will focus more on business goals and delivery of solutions rather than on maintenance of common base infrastructure

• Technology focus on compliance, governance and contract /SLA management will increase.

• Production costs to the firm will reduce by the sheer drop in core infrastructure capex and opex requirements

Thank You