" ITREALMS: Galaxy Backbone invested N2bn in ICT Infrastructure - Johnson

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Sunday, November 23, 2014

Galaxy Backbone invested N2bn in ICT Infrastructure - Johnson



The Federal Government has invested the sum of N2 billion on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, through the Galaxy Backbone Limited, reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

Disclosing this was the Honourable Minister for Communication Technology, Dr. Mrs. Omobola Johnson, at the formal launching of the unified email platform for the Federal Civil Service in Abuja.

She told DigitalSENSE Business News that the investment specifically focused on improving data centre environment, data computing and data storage resources.

According to her, the huge investment has resulted in the Galaxy network maintaining an uptime of over 96 per cent over the last 9 months and the Federal Government ICT company is driving to increase service reliability and availability of the platform to 99.999 per cent - known in the industry as “the Five Nines” where downtime is no more than 5.39 minutes in a year. 

She also commended the collaboration existing between Ministry of Communication Technology, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and Galaxy Backbone Ltd on the “switch to .gov.ng” initiative, the Minister stated that the initiative was designed by her Ministry for adoption and penetration of the unified email platform for federal civil servants on grade levels 10 to 17 in the first instance, while workers on grade levels 9 and below will be scaled onto the platform in a gradual and phased manner. 

Mrs Johnson further commended the immediate past and present Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar and Danladi Kifasi respectively, as well as the immediate past and present CEOs of Galaxy Backbone, Messrs Gerald Ilukwe and Yusuf Kazaure for the leadership and commitment demonstrated towards the successful implementation of the initiative.

She therefore, urged federal civil servants to embrace the unified email platform by keying into its objectives in order to improve internal productivity and quality service delivery to Nigerian citizens and foreigners.

“Collectively adopting this messaging and collaboration platform is an important pillar of our e-government strategy. The platform will improve the speed and efficiency of official communications and provide the means to share, store and gain access to official documents anytime, anywhere and on any computer or mobile device. Other features of the platform include the ability to send confidential (encrypted) email, schedule meetings on line, assign and track staff and colleagues on official tasks and assignments, send circulars service-wide at the touch of a button amongst others” she said.

The Minster further said that prior to this, the Ministry of Communication Technology with the strong support of the Council of ICT heads embarked on a similar initiative to not only standardize the look and feel of federal government websites but also to migrate all Ministry websites to the .gov.ng domain name. The migration of websites to the .gov.ng platform and this unfied email platform not only enables the delivery of government business over a more secure and robust technology platform, it also enhances our national cyber identity on the internet and improves confidence in citizens, businesses and foreigners as they seek Government information and services online. 
 
The Minister concluded by saying that Galaxy Backbone has also been recertified for the ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System (ISMS) standards, which is the foremost global information security standard. In this regard, Galaxy is launching a Government website certification program that will ensure that all sites hosted on the Galaxy platform are kept secure and safe from hackers and malicious software. 

+Remmy Nweke
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