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Monday, February 19, 2018

NITRA breakfast: Nigeria needs 72 data centres, demands critical infrastructure status



Stakeholders in the Nigeria's data centre industry have disclosed that the nation requires some 72 data centres nationwide to make access to data much accessible to the populace, reports ITRealms.

Leading discussion on this at the weekend was the Managing Director, Medallion Communications Limited, Mr. Ike Nnamani, his counterpart in MDXi Mr. Gbenga Adegboye and Mr. Tunde Coker of Rack Centre represented by Director of Operations, Mr. Ezekiel Egboye, agreed on various degree of expansion of data centre operations beyond the city of Lagos, just as they were in tandem that data centre be declared a critical infrastructure.

As of today, almost all the data centres in Nigeria are located in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of the country.

They made this known at the first-ever 2018 ‘Breakfast Meeting With The CEO’ held Friday at Protea Hotel, Ikeja GRA by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA).

For Mr. Nnamani, Nigeria needs at the least 72 data centres across the country, that is, estimated 2 data centres per the 36 states of the federation, to bring the access to these data closure to the people, given the population and vast land in Nigeria.

He also noted that the level of velocity in accessible data currently suffers extensive buffering on the network when accessed from the northern and eastern parts.

Also reacting to this discussion, the General Manager, MDXi, Mr. Gbenga Adegbiji, endorsed this position, saying it would bolster the data centre industry in the country to take its rightful place among the West African states.

This, he also said could translate into more cheap connectivity, more flexibility on network choices thereby improving end-user experiences.

In addition, he said when more data centres are in place, there will be extensive higher connectivity redundancy across network performances with accompanying lower latencies.

Leverage multiple network options to connect seamlessly to end users,” he declared.

For Director of Operations at Rack Centre, Lagos, Mr Ezekiel Egboye, Nigeria has insufficient technology infrastructure as far as data centre is concerned.

Nigeria, according to him, would have to invest more in technology infrastructure for the centres to be among global competitive, insisting that data centre connectivity and service play significant role in an economy.

“There should be an enabling environment to do with good power supply, capable manpower and proper control, ” he said.

Earlier in his opening remarks, the chairman of NITRA, Mr. Emma Okonji, said that the world nowadays is increasingly exploiting information technology for innovative services and competitive advantage, thus data centre plays a rapidly expanding role in job creation and preservation as well as the overall economic recovery as big data soars in Nigeria.

He also pointed out to the fact that Nigeria has witnessed significant investments in data centres being established in the country, stressing that availability of world class Data centres in Nigeria will spur critical infrastructure required for the implementation of the country’s Broadband initiatives among others.

The theme for this breakfast, ITRealms reports was “Data Centre Operation In Nigeria: Impacts, Benefits And Challenges In a Knowledge Economy.”


Chuks Egbune/GEE

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