MTN Rwanda is still the predominant mobile phone company in the country with more than 3.4 million subscribers and latest figures from the Rwanda Utilities Regulator Agency (RURA) reveal more than half the population now use a mobile phone.
Between January and March 2013, mobile telephone subscribers increased from 5,690,751 to 6,039,615 representing a 5.8 percent increase.
Similarly, the quarter recorded growth in mobile penetration rate to reach 57.3 percent from 53.1 percent recorded at the end of the previous quarter.
The growth is largely attributed to the new mobile telephone subscriptions and the actual population which was found to be less than the projected population.
It is also due to increased competition among telecoms companies and while MTN remains in the top spot, Tigo follows as a close second and Airtel Rwanda, the newest player in the market, has seen its number of subscriptions rise from 570,739 in January to 781,162 in March.
Fixed telephone subscriptions decreased from 44,363 to 42,323, this shows a decrease of 4.6 percent this impacted the fixed telephone penetration rate negatively by falling from 0.41 percent to 0.40 percent in the quarter under review.
On internet data, the number of internet subscriptions increased from 903,964 for the previous quarter in 2012 to 935,125 for the quarter under review, which records an increase of 3.3 percent.
Mobile data/internet subscriptions continue to dominate the internet market contributing 99.5 percent of the total Internet/data subscriptions.
The tariffs for both voice and internet almost remained the same except the off net tariff of Tigo Rwanda Ltd which fell from 90Rfw in the quarter under review.
]]>Starting any new business in today's volatile economy is a formidable challenge. It is estimated that at least 50 percent of them fail within the first five years. Those businesses that do survive beyond those crucial years have to carefully refine their business processes and operations, and in particular how they manage and protect their information assets.
One aspect that is often overlooked that can bring a business to its knees, irrespective of its past and current successes, is the lack of a robust backup and recovery strategy to cater for their exponential growth of business data.
While most companies today have some type of backup strategy in place, not all backup solutions are created equal. In fact, many fall short of meeting the most basic tried and tested methodologies to securely backup and recover enterprise-wide information.
Some organisations use one or a combination of in-house hardware, tape libraries, portable hard drives and memory sticks to back up their data and only too often, such backups are done on an ‘as and when’ basis instead of according to a fixed timetable. This can lead to missed data, duplication of data and data loss from hard disk drive failures, error-prone tape-based processes, power surges, loss or theft.
Others opt for public cloud offerings, which leave them vulnerable to data compromises from hackers. They also run the risk of only having intermittent access to their business-critical information at crucial points in sales cycles with no accountability from their service provider 'somewhere' in the cloud.
While there are many horror stories about what could happen if a business suffers data loss, companies that aren't able to resume operations within a few days of losing business-critical information are likely to suffer dips in revenue and reputational risk with their customers. It is estimated that 65 percent of businesses that suffer a significant loss of data do not survive beyond a further 12-month period.
As small businesses grow to become mid-sized companies, it is vital for them to have rigid and automated operational backup and recovery strategies in place that will allow them to safely and securely store their data.
Compliance and governance also becomes a greater issue as companies drive business value, so gaining visibility over their technology infrastructures is also a legal obligation that these organisations have to satisfy. In addition, many large customers will require companies to certify their compliance to strict risk management which will include disciplined and provable strategies for data protection.
These requirements place an additional burden on companies. Most growing organisations need all their people resources at their disposal to keep up with the pace of the expansion and cannot add additional resources to focus on rigorously backing up critical data on a continuous basis. Additionally, the lack of visibility over which files are business-critical versus those that are more transitory is increasing organisational risk.
As the technology landscape continues to evolve, specialist cloud computing providers have emerged that offer secure off-site cloud data protection solutions backed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
These next-generation cloud solutions provide organisations fast, assured and automated backup of their mission critical information with the ability to recover lost data via web interface in a timely manner. Automated cloud-based backup and recovery solutions not only reduce cost and administrative headaches, but frees up staff to focus on growing the business.
In addition, leveraging the cloud for backup and recovery offers small to medium businesses (SMB) a range of advantages:
· By opting for cloud backup, businesses know that their data is stored in a reliable, off-site, redundant environment in line with compliance and governance regulations.
· Some providers offer flexible retention and deployment configuration depending on an organisation's requirements, be it on-premises, cloud-based or hybrid.
· Reputable cloud providers offer companies advanced backup and restore capabilities, with the ability to roll back their backups to restore previous versions of the same documents, if the need arises, especially if they merely have a need to recover corrupted data and not the whole data set.
· Due to the economies of scale within the provider environment, backing up in the cloud reduces the costs associated with a dedicated backup infrastructure, simplifies IT budgeting. Many offer budget flexibility with 'pay as you protect' offerings.
· Most providers offer scheduling of backups, which reduces human error in backup procedures.
· SLA's are also top of mind for growing businesses to ensure that there is business continuity and respectable cloud providers offer users pro-active, web-based monitoring and around the clock operational support to manage possible backup errors and detect possible vulnerabilities.
When taking the cloud-based route it is important to ensure that service providers demonstrate the strictest processes and technologies to safeguard a company's data. This not only includes physical security of its data centres and acts of nature, but also written policies for proactive monitoring, data encryption in transit, encryption during storage, controlled access and verification of data integrity. If these requirements are satisfied, growing businesses can ensure that their journey to complete backup and recovery peace of mind is a successful one.
]]>Written by Jonathan Williamson
Dubai-based EZW is one of the globe’s pioneering developers and operators of economic free zones, technology, logistics and industrial parks, the combination of which creates an extensive infrastructure to support the expansion of its booming international customer base.
With the list of enticing benefits on offer, such as 100 percent foreign ownership and repatriation of capital, zero income tax, corporate tax and import/export tax, low operating costs and fast-track business setup, its little wonder many of the world’s top multinationals are flocking to these zones in their droves.
Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), one of the world’s largest and EZW’s flagship operation, has 150 of Fortune Magazine’s top 500 corporations operating within it. Located in the western end of Dubai close to Port Jebel Ali, the world’s largest man-made harbour, Jafza stretches over 48sqkm and contains more than 6,400 companies based in office units, warehouses, light industrial units and self-developed land sites. Other facilities include business centres, hotels, build-to-suit opportunities and world-class logistics connections.
One stop shop
The free zone has created a one-stop solution for any and all services required by a company wishing to establish activities and take advantage of the unique environment contained within. A beneficial step was reducing the amount of approvals needed from various ministers and government departments, with a straight-forward checklist being drawn up to facilitate a smooth set-up.
More than 300 African companies are currently reaping such rewards from Jafza’s many advantages, the majority hailing from Egypt, with Sudan, Tanzania and Kenya making up many of the remainder. Some of the more well-known names include Afrisource, Barloworld Logistics, Dorman Long Engineering, Punch Limited, Kampac Oil and Metra Computer Group.
“Many African countries have huge investment potential, constituting opportunities for companies both within the continent and those based in the UAE,” said EZW Chairman Hisham Abdullah Shirawi.
“In Dubai, especially in Jafza we have the infrastructure to facilitate the establishment of an international dimension for African businesses. We offer facilities for storage, packing, marketing and a means of being connected to a truly global distribution network; all of which are unfortunately not adequately available throughout Africa,” he added.
Though headquartered in the business capital of the Middle East, EZW also has a growing number of wider interests with activities across the UAE, Middle East, India, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas. Of increasing importance is EZW’s own presence in Africa through Djibouti Free Zone (DFZ), located on the horn of the continent.
Created with the singular purpose of radically changing the way Africa thinks and conducts business; through DFZ, EZW have shaped the ideal environment in which trade and commerce can flourish.
“Africa is a very promising region, one of the fastest developing economically speaking,” said Shirawi. “It has huge potential in terms of energy, food, agriculture and a host of other resources.
“DFZ is one of the most successful free zones in Africa and we have plans to not only expand that operation, but establish a similar entity elsewhere on the continent particularly where high production facilities exist or could be developed and where raw materials or other opportunities could be leveraged.”
Overcoming hurdles
Responsible for developing and overseeing not only Jafza, EZW’s Dubai operations also includes Techno Park – providing specialist facilities for companies wishing to establish a manufacturing or R&D presence; Dubai Auto Zone – an area for the import/export of vehicles and converting a proportion from left-hand to right-hand drive and vice-versa; and Gazeley – a global developer and provider of sustainable logistics solutions.
“When Jafza was established in 1985 under the Late Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, it wasn’t a common activity and many considered it to be a short-lived dream; time has proven otherwise,” said Shirawi. “We have amassed a huge amount of knowledge, overcoming many of the hurdles such an activity creates and we would be very keen to share our experiences with African nations and companies.”
Within Jafza there is a business unit dedicated to working on opportunities such as establishing additional free zones in other parts of the world, with a particular African focus towards energy, like the huge reserves of coal in Mozambique, and agriculture, with corn being considered as not only a potential food source, but also a synthetic fuel.
“We have to consider each of them, prioritising on the basis of ease of execution, fastest payback period and the willingness of a country to invest in one sector over another; then we can establish our collaborative economic activities. The opportunity really is huge,” said Shirawi.
For African regions wishing to establish their own free zones, the final vision has to be the focus, said Shirawi: “What type of environment do countries ultimately want to operate in among themselves and the rest of the world in 10, 20, 50 years?”
“Once that vision becomes clear, it’s then easier to work backwards and define the rules, regulations, modifications and requirements needed that will facilitate certain stage to achieve that end goal. At each stage feedback must be gathered to monitor progress and see what has already been achieved.”
“Africa, like any other continent, is going to be integrated with the rest of the world’s economy; you can’t simply live in isolation anymore. You have to talk to your neighbour because we all have common interests, to try and do otherwise is impossible,” he concluded.Writte
]]>Samsung’s Galaxy S4 hit the shops in South Africa at the weekend following an official product launch at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.
Hailed as the smartest smart-phone on the market it has an array of futuristic features including the world’s first Full HD Super Amoled display a five-inch scratch-resistant screen, 2,600 mAh battery, a 13-megapixel-rear camera and a two megapixel front camera.
The dual camera facility means it can take photos in a sequence while it also enables the user to erase unwanted images such as a person accidentally appearing in the photo.
Robert Ngeru, Chief Operations Officer for Samsung Electronics, East and Central Africa, said: “It’s a smart companion as it has all the relevant features that are required on a cellphone, be it on health, be it on training and on education, be it on email and office work. So it covers all aspects of everyday life.”
The gadget has already made its debut in other leading cities around the world including London, Sydney, Hong Kong and New York.
The launch also follows hot on the heels of Samsung’s quarterly earnings report which revealed the company has shipped about 70 million smartphones so far this year, a 60.7 percent increase from the year-on-year.
Its first quarter profits rose 42 percent to $6.4 billion and sales were up 17 percent to $47.6 billion. Samsung accounted for 32.7 percent of smartphone sales during the quarter while its main competitor Apple owned 17.3 percent.
In response to the huge demand for mobile phones in Africa, Samsung has already established 330 service centres across Africa to service the Galaxy S4 as it comes with a 24-month warranty that covers without any charge any problems experienced during the guarantee period.
George Ferreira, the Vice-President and chief Operations Officer for Samsung Electronics Africa told the hundred or so attendees at the convention centre launch that the warranty was “with no questions asked, and which is a world-first.”
Among the countries hosting the service centres are: Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Mauritius, Ghana, Uganda, Senegal, Cote d’Ivorie, Sudan, Angola, Tanzania, Botswana and Mozambique.
]]>A takeover deal has been reached between the world’s fourth largest mobile phone operator, Bharti Airtel, and Warid Telecom Uganda.
The Indian based firm looks set to increase its market share in Uganda by 39 percent, although no financial details of the deal have so far been released.
Manoj Kohli, Bharti Airtel’s managing director and Chief Executive Officer said: "We are delighted at this agreement with Warid, which also happens to be the first in-market acquisition in Bharti Airtel's history.
“We believe this market consolidation offers great synergies by bringing together the best of Airtel and Warid to better serve customers in Uganda."
Airtel first entered the African market in 2010 and now has a presence in 17 African countries and a customer base of more than 62 million customers in the continent.
Warid is the third largest mobile phone company In Uganda and the deal will see Airtel add a further 2.8 million customers to its total user base in the country of 7.4 million.
Mohammed Nahayan, who sits on the board of Warid, said: "We are extremely pleased with this development, which offers Warid consumers added benefits like wider network coverage, most extensive 3G network, world class products and services from one of the world's largest mobile services provider."
It is also hoped the takeover will help Airtel to expand its One Airtel network as well as lowering roaming rates across Africa and South Asia.
In Rwanda active mobile subscribers as of February 2013 are six million, according to Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority, while MTN enjoying the largest share at 71 percent.
Mobile cellular penetration rate reached jumped from 44.8 percent in June 2012 to 56 percent in March 2013.
]]>By Christo Briedenhann, Country Manager of Riverbed Technology, Africa
In Africa, an emerging information technology industry is betting its future on serving customers and businesses through cloud based applications.
At the same time, governments and non-governmental organisations are betting that cloud-based technology can help transform their economies and societies, spurring improvements in education, public health, and the environment.
The mobile-centric nature of Africa’s future, its current infrastructure, and the scattered nature of much of its information technology industry all make the continent a prime candidate for cloud computing.
It sounds great, but making the cloud work in Africa remains a non-trivial problem. There are challenges unique to Africa, notably the last mile, the remoteness of many areas, and the fact that not all regions have access to high speed Internet yet.
In general, when employees are accessing company applications and data from remote locations, they are likely to experience performance problems.
One possible option that many organisations have considered is to install servers and networking equipment in each branch office.
However, this can be expensive in terms of licensing and management; require skilled staff on site to manage server and storage systems; can cause issues of data integrity, especially if employees need to collaborate on files and documents; and does not necessarily overcome the performance issues experienced by those attempting to access data via a wide area network (WAN).
For those organisations that have embarked on a consolidation project and removed servers from the branch office, or intend to, there are further hurdles to overcome.
When data has to be accessed over long distances, many CIFS applications are affected by latency. Increasing bandwidth won’t necessarily overcome poor performance, as adding more bandwidth will not address latency - but a WAN optimisation solution will.
WAN optimisation overcomes latency through specific TCP and application protocols.
African organisations require technology that optimises bandwidth and accelerates applications to offer both financial and performance improvements.
These technologies, brought to market by Riverbed Technology, can improve bandwidth utilisation at remote locations by between 60 percent and 95 percent and improve application performance by five to 50 times. In addition, organisations can avoid expensive bandwidth upgrades and free up bandwidth for other applications such as VoIP.
In African business, as with anywhere in the world, there’s a driving need to cut costs and do more with less.
When application performance is as good at a remote location as it is in the head office, remote workers use the applications more effectively, are able to work more productively, and can deliver the service customers expect.
This benefits the company’s efficiencies, reputation and bottom line, in addition to reducing operating costs.
]]>National Airways Corporation (NAC) has solved a number of back up issues with its IT system with the help of Altonet and the HP Autonomy LiveVault solution.
National Airways Corporation (NAC) is the largest general aviation company in Africa, offering a full range of aviation services including aircraft sales, aircraft maintenance, parts, charters, international operations and pilot training.
The company is headquartered at Lanseria Airport in Johannesburg, with offices across the country in Cape Town, Durban, Grand Central Airport, Wonderboom Airport and Rand Airport.
This distributed environment, along with a host of compliance regulations from both an internal and customer perspective, made backup and data protection a challenging prospect.
When NAC identified several weaknesses with its current backup strategy it turned to Altonet which is one of South Africa’s leading first tier Web Hosting and Data Networking companies offering world class Internet services as one of the most advanced dedicated network environments in the country. It is also a Black Economic Empowerment company.
Andrew McGurk, Manager: IT at National Airways Corporation, said: “Previously, we were using a combination of different manual backup processes. These were inefficient and time consuming, and were not compliant with a number of standards as laid out by our customers, which consist of large international organisations with stringent processes and requirements.
“For auditing purposes, our existing strategy was not sufficient. The weaknesses in our backup strategy also became apparent after we experienced a system failure. Altonet worked with us to find the most cost effective solution to our problems, and we selected the HP Autonomy LiveVault system as a result.”
Each of the six NAC sites was previously responsible for its own backup, and there was no centralised service to ensure this occurred. Adding to this challenge, the area where the company’s head office is located frequently experiences unstable power, with dips and spikes causing data loss despite a backup generator being in place. The area is also prone to theft, which means that physical data loss is also a concern for the company.
HP Autonomy LiveVault helps to address these issues by combining proven disk and online technologies to deliver a fully managed service in the private cloud that automates, streamlines, and reduces the complexity of server backup.
As a cloud solution, LiveVault is geographically independent, and provides automated and continuous backups from all sites to minimise the burden of managing the complex and error-prone manual data protection process. Recovery of data is also automated, as users can select the data to recover from a catalogue of archived file versions, and LiveVault automatically restores the data to the selected location.
Gareth Tudor, Chief Executive Officer of Altonet said: “Each NAC site will make use of an onsite backup appliance, as well as centralised cloud backup and data protection. This will ensure that data can be restored quickly in the event of an incident.
“Furthermore, the data is stored offsite for risk mitigation and compliance purposes. This also offers the inbuilt redundancy required for compliance purposes.
“In order to minimise the upload time of the data, we will physically transport preconfigured servers to each site to complete a full backup via the Local Area Network (LAN). These servers will then be moved into the Altonet data centre in Isando and a local onboard of data will be conducted. From this point, incremental backups will be conducted online and to the onsite backup appliance to ensure that data backup remains up to date at all times,” he explained.
]]>The Liberian Telecommunications Authority (LTA) has launched the international gateway measuring projects in Liberia in order to not improve the telecoms service in the country, but to improve security measures across the whole industry.
It is thought that the development will smooth over cracks which have been ever-present in the country as its telecom reach continues to expand. Namely, this relates to fraud and tax evasion.
This new project aims to address both aspects of this conundrum while continuing the technologic progress the industry had been making in the country, and indeed the wider continent over recent years.
LTA Commissioner, Abdullah Kamara has been quoted as saying that he expects the initiative to generate “an additional US$5-7 million for the government, annually”.
The announcement was made at the Pan African Travel Agency Building in Congo Town and has been met with wide acclaim from the general public who recognise the need for a uniform service to keep the industry moving forward and the economy ticking over.
Telecommunications plays a pivotal role in the country’s income, and the money generated through taxes as a result of closer monitoring of the network will have a major impact on finances in Liberia in the future.
By measuring the international traffic system, the LTA will be able to monitor the exact amount of taxes owed to the government while also preventing fraud in the form users redirecting calls from international lines rather than local ones.
This would count as relatively new income to the government with such a comprehensive system unheard of prior to this. And with assurances that the network would not be used to invade people’s privacy or listen in to their conversations, the repercussions can only be good for the future of Liberia’s telecommunications industry.
]]>MTN Cameroon has officially inaugurated two new Service Centres in the towns of Kousseri, in the Far North Region of the country, and in Douala, the nation’s economic capital.
They will offer quality services and innovative, simple as well as affordable solutions to meet the communication needs of the population.
The MTN Kousseri Service Centre will help to further establish MTN’s presence in this strategic zone of the Far North Region which is a thriving economic hub on Cameroon’s borders with Chad and Nigeria.
It will further offer MTN subscribers of Kousseri and its neighboring localities a differentiated customer experience through offering a more personalised service.
From now on, customers will no longer have to travel thousands of kilometers to go to the MTN Service Centre in Maroua on rough terrain to meet their communication needs.
The Douala-based MTN VIP Bonapriso Service Centre, which was commissioned in January 2013, receives the company’s VIP customers and subscribers working or living in this part of the town.
Spacious, welcoming, and run by a dynamic professional and highly-qualified team, it is equipped with innovative state-of–the-art technology and provides quality services to respond to the legitimate demands of MTN’s customers.
Here, clients are given an unforgettable and unique customer experience for all their GSM, Internet, Mobile Money and Multimedia needs. Two new Service Centres will be opened in Douala in the next few weeks to ease access by the population to modern and quality communication services.
The rapid growth of MTN’s subscriber base over the last couple of years, has made it necessary for the organisation to create more Service Centres.
The additional centres will also take the pressure off its 12 existing Service Centres and thousands of touch points and enable MTN Cameroon to continue providing its 7.3 million subscribers with quality customised services.
MTN Cameroon is looking to open another five Service Centres nationwide by 2014 in line with its mission to offer quality innovative, simple and accessible communication solutions to meet the communication needs of the population.
Since the incorporation of MTN in Cameroon in February 2000, it has succeeded in making its brand a reference in Cameroon by leaving no stone unturned to ease access by the population to modern and quality communication services.
MTN Cameroon’s Chief Executive Officer, Karl Toriola, said: “Satisfying our customers is a permanent concern for us at MTN, as this endeavour explains the reason of our existence.”
Over the past 13 years, MTN has invested more than 500 billion francs CFA to build in Cameroon, a state-of-the-art, reliable, robust and an extended telecommunications network.
]]>MTN Group is going live with its bouquet of distinct cloud services this April, following a highly successful trial period in six of its major markets across Africa.
The operator launched the MTN Cloud pilot project in December last year, targeting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa. The pilot made MTN the first mobile network operator in Africa to adopt the Cloud Service Brokerage model.
This approach entails the centralisation of access to services where a third party, in this case MTN, acts as the single point of contact for customers.
The focus is on convenience, as centralising access to services eases the administrative burden for businesses, where instead of dealing with multiple service providers, they now deal with one.
Executive for MTN’s Group Enterprise Business Unit, Farhad Khan, said the response to the MTN Cloud trial was positive.
He said:“What the pilot project confirmed is that our offerings are on the mark. There is great appetite for ICT solutions that are relevant, customised and affordable.
“SMEs are looking to technology service providers such as MTN to bring them world-class tools that improve their business efficiencies. MTN Cloud offers exactly that.”
MTN went live with MTN Cloud in Ghana and Nigeria on this week and other markets will follow later in the year.
MTN Cloud offers an impressive list of services. As part of the trial, participating companies were offered access to Office Desktop, a cost-effective email and collaborative software, Mozypro, a back-up service for the effective management of files and servers, and Dialcom, an on-demand video conferencing offering.
Also on offer were McAfee, a popular anti-virus and anti-spam security software, Averiware, used for companies’ HR, accounting, finance and sales force automation needs, and Microsoft SharePoint, a staff and cross functional collaborative tool. This is in addition to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a customer relations management tool.
The most popular of the MTN Cloud solutions during the trial were Averiware, MozyPro Online Backup, and McAfee SaaS.
Companies that participated in the pilot ranged from SMEs in the IT, manufacturing and hospitality sectors in Ghana to those in media and advertising in Nigeria.
Khan concluded: “MTN is optimistic about the uptake of MTN Cloud. Our focus as MTN is to contribute to the development of enterprises and the sustainable growth of economies, and SMEs are key economic growth drivers in most of our markets.”
MTN said that business customers would receive a 30-day trial of MTN Cloud. Customers who subscribed to MTN Cloud through MTN Business would also be able to pay for services using airtime.
]]>Africa is an increasingly mobile continent, making smart mobile application development one of the continent's next big industries.
The mobile application space is set to boom across Africa, as enterprises and developers lead the world in bringing to market unique mobile applications suited to a developing market.
There are several reasons for this - crucially, Africa is a mobile continent. Mobile devices are becoming smarter, faster and more affordable; smartphone adoption is growing by around 15 percent year on year across the continent, and mobile bandwidth has become better and more affordable.
In addition, mobile applications are particularly relevant in a South African and pan-African context, where a young, increasingly tech-savvy and often geographically dispersed population is fast seeing the advantages of self-service and mobile business.
Advanced, user-friendly mobile apps will be the next customer service excellence differentiator. To maintain a competitive advantage, enterprises will increasingly roll out mobile consumer apps to maintain their competitive lead, and to deliver services.
We foresee that many operators will see this as a new way of doing business. Why? For one thing, mobile apps enhance the customer experience. The old USSD0-based self-service options are not particularly user-friendly, especially for less tech-savvy consumers.
Dialling *123#456# may have sufficed when there was no other alternative, but now consumers can simply press an icon or a menu button on a smartphone to interact with enterprises.
Getting it right
In order for mobile apps to be effective, they need to begin with meeting customer needs, and they must be simple and easy to use.
They also need to address enterprise pain points - for example, the most common contact centre queries can be migrated to a self-service smartphone app, so improving customer experience and easing the contact centre workload.
They also need to deliver concise, personalised and easy to navigate information to the end-user, supplying all the relevant information at a glance, with the ability to drill down, slice or dice if needed.
In the enterprise application space, we see that once mobile workers have access to effective ERP mobile apps, they seldom revert to their laptops to access ERP systems.
Achieving this requires a great deal of preparatory work, to identify what end users need, what the business goals are for the app, and what the current enterprise pain points are, which could be addressed with a customised mobile app.
Leading the world
Africa is traditionally innovative, and because mobile apps are so relevant to the African context, with a low barrier to entry for app developers, we envisage massive growth in the app development space across the continent.
An innovative youngster with little more than internet access and aptitude can learn to develop apps, and bring to market new solutions tailored to meet African needs.
It requires a niche skill set, but mobile application development will become the order of the day as demand increases.
There is scope for app development across numerous areas - for example, banking, healthcare and education. And apps developed for the African context may also be relevant to other developing regions of the world, meaning there is huge potential for growth in this sector.
While we have seen growth in this space in recent years, the continent's potential is still relatively untapped; which is why we are now seeing a rush of foreign investors into the continent.
LGR Telecommunications is very excited about the potential for growth in this area, and we are focusing our attention on meeting this growing need for appropriate mobile apps to grow enterprises, enhance quality of service and customer experience.
LGR Telecommunications is a specialist solutions provider with an exclusive focus on the global telecommunications industry. For more than a decade LGR has built an enviable reputation for the provision and management of the world’s foremost end-to-end Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence systems at leading international operators. It works with companies such as AT&T, Telestra, Vodafone, True Corp and the MTN Group.
]]>One of the many areas where services are beginning to move towards the cloud is in the database, as cloud providers, either public or private, can remove many of the time consuming tasks around installing, configuring and provisioning the database. These roles are typically assigned to the database administrator (DBA), and one of the questions this raises is around the future of the DBA and their role in a cloud environment.
While cloud providers may take on a large proportion of the mundane tasks associated with the database, this by no means negates the position of the DBA. Instead, it allows the DBA to move from a tactical position to more of a strategic role, focusing on tasks that will add value to the business rather than being exclusively assigned to the day-to-day maintenance and running of infrastructure.
For many reasons, the role of the DBA will continue to be an important one in the cloud environment, but DBAs need to be prepared for a shift from a highly technical role, to one that adds greater business value down the line.
The typical role of the DBA generally revolves around planning, designing, configuring and implementing databases and database platforms, as well as high availability and disaster recovery for each database. It also includes maintenance and monitoring of databases and platforms, performance tuning, workload balancing and security. In the cloud environment, all of these duties are transferred to the cloud service provider. However, this does not mean that the role of the DBA will become obsolete in a cloud environment.
Scaling the job
Of the many responsibilities of a DBA, the list above is by no means all encompassing, and people in this position often perform many other advisory and functional roles. One of these is providing advice on the sizing of databases and servers. While cloud databases allow for instant scalability, the organisation needs to understand how big or small they will need to scale in order to meet current needs. The DBA, whether in-house or outsourced, will have the technical knowledge and understanding of the business to provide assistance in this regard.
Configuration of the database, while this can be left to the cloud provider, is another task that benefits from the expertise and experience of a DBA. This task involves a wide variety of processes, including determining the optimal balance and size of blocks for reading and writing of data, as well as setting the required parameters for parallel processing.
Tuning the configuration with additional memory and processors is also a job that requires knowledge of business needs. A DBA will have the necessary understanding of the business and its requirements to perform these tasks, and will therefore ensure that the cloud provider delivers the optimal configuration.
Once applications are in place, the cloud provider can then perform the necessary monitoring of performance, a task that was traditionally also within the stable of the DBA’s role. The DBA can then use the monitoring and reporting delivered by the cloud provider to query performance issues and ensure they are resolved.
Another critical role of the DBA is to ensure database security remains at optimal levels. Enterprise databases typically store large volumes of confidential, sensitive or private data about employees, customers, intellectual property and more.
Security is top priority
Keeping this information secure is critical, and the DBA is essential in ensuring both implementing and maintaining database security policies and practices. In light of the impending Protection of Personal Information (PoPI) Act, this role is even more important.
Finally, the aspect of responsibility and accountability also needs to be considered. If all databases reside within the cloud, who is responsible when these services are down? If the responsibility is shared, often the outcome is that nobody ends up taking responsibility, and a ‘blame game’ ensues that could cause detrimental downtime.
There needs to be an accountable person or persons to ensure that downtime can be kept to a minimum, particularly where mission-critical business data is concerned. The DBA is the ideal person to fulfil this role in the cloud environment.
So, in a cloud database environment, is a DBA still necessary? The answer to that question is a definite yes. The DBA’s tasks within the cloud environment may change, but there remains a very prominent role for this resource to play. The role of DBAs will move up the value chain, from tactical infrastructure-oriented tasks towards a more strategic role of advisor, analyst and support provider.
Established in 1995, RDB Consulting is an outsource and consulting company that specialises in five areas: Relational databases, Operating Systems, Database Security, Monitoring and Enterprise Resource Planning. The organisation also offers project management, solutions architecture, on-going maintenance and support.
]]>Some five million birr is being invested in a new ICT Park in Ethiopia aimed at boosting the country’s information technology service and offering reliable mobile broadband infrastructure.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) is behind the project and work is set to start on its construction within a month.
The Ethio ICT Park will be situated on 200 hectares of land behind Bole International Airport in the Bole district.
Private operators have already signed up for 25,000sqm plots including ZTE and Techno Mobile and Security Innovation Network (SINET) who will establish their own ICT incubation centres, manufacturing plants and software development centres.
Behane Keleta, project manager, said more than 12 local and international companies have also registered and taken office space in the park.
The project was presented to delegates at the 11th innovation Africa Digital Summit at the Sheraton Hotel and Minister of Industry Mekonnen Manyazewal inaugurated the plan.
Addis Alemayehu, member of the board of directors of ICT-ET, a sectoral association, and managing director of 251 Communications, a communications firm, said: “Software’s that operate in local languages will also be developed in the park.
The park will have its own road infrastructure as well as supportive facilities including a food court, restaurants, pubs, karaoke lounges, medical facilities, financial services, postal and banking services.
It will also feature facilities such as child care centres, training centres and a fire station is hoped to be completed in three years’ time.
The Park will be divided into five zones, which include business, assembly and warehouse, commercial, administration and knowledge Park.
The new park will help the Ethiopian government to boost mobile subscription in the country by 20 million in its five-year plan, dubbed the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP), ending in 2014/15. It also envisions raising the number of internet service subscribers to 3.69 million.
]]>Sifiso Dabengwa, MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, paid an official visit to staff and management of MTN Cameroon to share the organisation’s new vision and mission as well as its five pillars for growth.
He called on staff to be at the forefront of the provision of a bold, new digital world full of hi-tech solutions tailored to respond to MTN customers’ ever-increasing needs for a memorable customer experience.
Dabengwa was on the last leg of a week-long Executive Roadshow where he visited several operations of the MTN Group in Africa.
He also highlighted his ambition for MTN to be a leader and reference everywhere it operates, a goal which he believes is attainable given the human potential and means of the company to achieve its objectives.
In a rallying call, he also urged the large gathering of personnel to further showcase selflessness and seriousness at work to guarantee constant growth of the company’s market share.
MTN staff, throughout the country, was able to hear the CEO’s message live from video conference halls and remotely on their computers.
Group Chief Operating Executive (GCOE), Ahmad Farouk, outlined the five pillars that will help MTN to execute its vision.
They are: creating and managing stakeholder value; creating a distinct customers experience; driving sustainable growth; transforming its operating model and innovation and best practice.
Farouk said: “An attainable vision is underpinned by a robust culture and employees are invited to innovate by introducing something new, better or different, largeor small, that adds sustainable value to our business.”
MTN Cameroon’s CEO Karl Toriola re-emphasized the satisfaction of employees who were happy to have the opportunity to engage with MTN Group Management which also marked the second annual visit by the Group President and CEO to the country.
MTNCameroon, which currently has 7.3 million subscribers, is the leader in the Cameroon telecommunications market, and among the five most significant enterprises in the country.
In the past 12 years, the Cameroon operation has invested roughly 500 billion francs CFA in the development of a state-of-the-art and an extending its network.
]]>Governments need to push harder if renewable energy schemes are going to be wholeheartedly utilised to eradicate the global problem of landfill.
Richard Wardrop, Operations Director of Durban-based technical and management company, Environmental Waste Solutions, believes the political will to deal with landfill issues is not present.
However, his company is doing its utmost to change the status quo, using a process which harnesses plasma arc gasification technology for the eradication of landfill, which in turn produces energy.
He said: “My own opinion is that the political will to deal with landfill is not really there. I think there has to be something in legislation whereby Government says to municipalities and councils ‘that’s it, you are not going to be able to use landfill after a certain day. There won’t be any landfill tax because there will be no landfill’.
“I get very frustrated by the lack of action by politicians supported by civil servants who see anything which impacts on their workload as a nuisance and my experiences in both Africa and the UK are exactly the same.”
Light on horizon
However, Wardrop believes that the future of renewable energy schemes is as bright in South and Southern Africa as it is in Europe and the US and with good reason.
EWS, which has its holding company in the UK, is currently in negotiations for its first gasification plant in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province which would be capable of generating 50 MegaWatts of power from the waste it can process.
The EWS solution means that that a lesser amount of the electricity will be lost because it is generated at the point of use and doesn’t have to be sent down a transmission line, unlike conventional methods which result in power transmission losses.
The technology which EWS uses has been developed by Israeli company Environmental Energy Resources Ltd. However, it was originally the work of leading scientists at the Kurchatov Institute in Russia, a world renowned scientific institution for treatment of low-level radioactive waste.
Wardrop said: “You basically get two huge bonuses from one project, eliminating landfill and generating power. However, many people get confused by the process of gasification and incineration.
“With gasification, the temperatures used in the process are much higher which destroy all the toxins present and at the end leave a resin-type substance which is totally inert and can be used for road-fill or foundations for houses, etc.”
Pure power
It is a very clean process which produces a gas that can be used in engines, turbines or combined heat cycle machines and it generates 1.25 megawatts of power for every 10,000 tons of waste. Plus, the amount of thermal energy produced by the process equates to 2.75 MW of thermal energy per 10,000 tonnes of MSW processed.
The plant, which is hoped will be commissioned early in 2015, will create 200 jobs during its construction and then 70 in the long term.
EWS is working with a private in Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) group, who has won the contract to own, operate and run the plant.
“About 60 percent of what is required for the plant will be manufactured locally. We will act as the technical suppliers and advisors while the BEE group own, manage and operate the day-to-day operations,” said Wardrop.
“I am confident that once the plant is installed, up and running there will be a queue of people coming to us wanting to do the same thing. We will certainly be looking to do similar projects in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region.”
Wardrop pointed out that looking at the current statistics for South Africa 3 GW of power could be generated from the country’s collected waste, which equates to the same amount of power from a conventional power station.
He said: “the issue is that landfill in its own right is an iniquitous thing to do. The legacy we are leaving for future generations is the legacy we are leaving now because if you travel around the world to any city or town there will be a hole in the ground somewhere full of rotting rubbish and really who would want to live on a landfill site. It is primitive.”
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