I want to carry on the cloud discussion alittle bit more because i have a dream similar to Paul's. Call it selfish or patriotic but the day we shall have a place in Kenya similar to London Docklands/Canary Wharf area in London. If you have been there you know what i mean. Then i will say "tumejaribu". For now "tunajaribu". To start with i want break down the could discussions to their simplicity. I think calling it cloud obscures the challenges and opportunities. The cloud consists of three components 1) Infrastructure 2) Software application 3) Technical expertise. I will briefly mention components 2 & 3 because these are the easiest and they have been spoken about by others in previous posts. We have a average to decent number of skill sets in the community to build and run the facilities. The software is there open-source or commercial. However, when it comes to infrastructure this is different. The amount of investments to be made in building acceptable classified facilities (read data centers) is probably for those with deep pockets and they are but a afew. In 2006, i was in a IXP forum in Europe where they were talking about how carrier neutral Datacenter facilities were running out. As a result, some of the Carrier Neutral DC developers like Equinix and Telecity started looking East-wards (read Asia) for build outs. Virtualization was in itself a revolutionary reprieve for those who depend on leasing collocation space at a time when the colo pricing was going up. Fast forward to 2010-2011. The demand for "Carrier Neutral" Data centers has not eased and the developers have started going south (Latin America, Africa and Australia). Telecity now has facilities in Capetown and J'burg (i wonder why they missed Kenya on the way down). To the issue at hand. Cloud will only be realised if we have the infrastructure. That is "Carrier Neutral" facilities. At the moment there are only two "carrier neutral" locations in Kenya that i know of. the KIXP and the SEACOM Landing Station. Both this facilities are rather too small to be even considered as facilities but yet thats all we have in form of Carrier Neutral facilities. I think everyone that i know is now building a Data Center including GoK. But they are all carrier specific. I dont want to go into the details of which is better than the other - but its obvious that the reason why Europe, Asia, and the US are far ahead in this space was because of Carrier Neutral facilities. The following article may be of value on understanding the benefits of carrier neutral facilities. http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/the-benefits-of-using-carrier-... A simple analogy of the difference between the two types of Data Centers is an airport. Assume you went to JKIA and only KQ operates from there. The impact on convenience and cost is subjec to KQ. However at the moment JKIA is a hub because from there KQ has no monopoly over any destinations. It faces equal competition to most of its destinations and that makes JKIA what it is and as you can see on the local press we have to make it bigger to handle the growing capacities. So the bigger issue is what do we have to do to encourage or attract the building of Carrier Neutral facilities?. Well this where i will stop and hope that we can have a debate on what it takes to build such facilities in Kenya. However, before i stop - i will say one thing the GoK has done some great things in stirring up areas that are looked at skeptically like the TEAMs Cable, NOFBI, etc. Am not saying that they should go ahead and do the same - but am saying build the prototype and get the private sector screaming and running to beat the Govt. My 2 cents, Michuki. On 7/6/11 8:29 AM, aki wrote:
@Paul Kukubo, thanks for the input. Some of us very aware of the cloud opportunities and applications. Whether we take virtualization of data storage to creating terminal services, these environments exist. Whether SME or startups, they need cost cutting and affordable ways to maintain ICT continuity without breaking the bank.
You bring a key point about Govt being the driver of data storage and management, yet there is a big disconnect between the private sector such as ISPs, Telcos, Developers and Govt. At this infant stage of clouding, in whatever context we may look at, Govt support is key as a catalyst of what cloud services could become. I strongly insist that all Govt projects should be kept within the borders and systems of KE. We need this ownership and aslo the ability to use the existing infrastructure. Govt needs to open up the world class data centre for private/public use and also its infrastructure like fiber so that anyone planning a system or such can know what the options are, besides other networks and services. There is no need to put up many data centres, if we already core ones in place.
As govt representative, you also need to comeup with a development register that will notify Kenyans of planned projects and those interested can have ample planning and resource time to engage in such projects.
Rgds.
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