Cloud Computing Services hits Ghana directly

In this globally integrated economy, midsize businesses are advised to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Charles Benoni Okine writes about the concept of cloud computing and how a local service provider has positioned itself to help local businesses through this new concept.

One small scale businessman whispered to a friend after the launch of Cloud computing service in Accra.

Businessman - “Ei! Is that how magical the computer has become. It is moving things very fast”?

Friend - “Why are you saying so”?

Businessman - “Hmm! so now that computer things has reached the clouds and we are told that can even benefit my business”? “Wow! “What a world”.

The businessman’s curiosity had arisen as a result of what he had heard during the presentations about cloud computing and how businesses such as his, could be used to enhance their service delivery and make it more productive.

There is no doubt that, Information Communications Technology (ICT) has now reached a point of no return and it seems to be opening up opportunities at all fronts provided people take advantage of it to transform their lives and their businesses among many other things.

Cloud Computing

A cloud, as mentioned by the experts in ICT, is a powerful combination of cloud computing, networking, storage, management solutions, and business applications that facilitate a new generation of IT and consumer services.

As a result, Cloud computing can be described as the delivery of hosted services over the Internet.

This enables the delivery of communication services and users can gain access to their services virtually anywhere, at any time in the world.

These services are available on demand and are delivered economically without compromising security or functionality.

Cisco, a global leader in ICT software, said for instance that “We are moving to an interconnected "world of many clouds"; this will give people access to services any time, on any device, anywhere in the world”.

According to Cisco, to take full advantage of cloud computing, enterprises need to evolve their IT strategy to achieve greater business value through the improved cost-savings and productivity that cloud services offer.

Service providers, therefore, need to offer and monitor cloud computing services to serve their customers even more effectively while improving profitability.

As to why cloud computing matters,  it is said that solving today's biggest business and technology challenges requires an approach that fully integrates the three pillars of cloud computing: applications and services; data centers; and networks.

This approach will need to keep pace with changing market trends, which require greater elasticity, agility, and speed to support evolution in weeks or months, not years.

To IBM, in this globally integrated economy, midsize businesses need to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

IBM and its Business Partners claim to understand the challenges and had created specific products and solutions designed to help growing companies to work more productively and profitably to succeed on it describes as “a smarter planet”.

In Ghana for instance, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu is on record as advising small and micro business owners to take full advantage of what ICT brings to enable them enhance their businesses.

But this can only be achieved when service providers lead the businesses on by making available user friendly applications, capitalizing on what exist globally to enable them to achieve their aim.

MTN Cloud Services

The MTN Cloud Service centralises remote access to data and applications where a third party, in this case, MTN, acts as the single point of contact for customers.

This allows companies to focus on their core businesses instead of concentrating on infrastructure costs.

It also allows businesses to come out with information processing requirements of the average organisation in terms of secure data management, fire wall protection and some application to remove the infrastructure that allows functioning just as the user. 

In effect, it is the delivery of hosted service over the Internet or any secured virtual private network (VPN), a network that uses a public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or individual users with secure access to their organization's network. 

With this service, MTN clients can now purchase software directly from MTN a trusted local supplier in Ghana, rather than having to purchase from cloud providers in America or Europe

Customers can also purchase products to suit all their software needs from one vendor rather than separate vendors.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of the MTN Ghana, Mr Michael Ikpoki, cloud services marked an important milestone in the life of MTN Business, a division in the company.

He said out of six markets – Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa – selected by the MTN Group, Ghana was the first country to launch the service in West Africa.

“Cloud services constitute a recent innovation in the IT space and we are very proud to be leading in this market. With the rapid development in ICT and telecoms sector, driven by strong desire to provide customer experience, there is expectation that technology can do more for SMEs,” Mr Ikpoki said.

Advice to SMEs

He thus called on SMEs and large corporate organisations to invest in new technologies and new solutions to drive growth in their respective businesses.              

The Head of Business Solutions at MTN Ghana, Mr Eric Nsarkoh, said the idea of the MTN Cloud was to manage stress aspect of organisations.

“In terms of its uniqueness, there is a lot of flexibility because all you are required to do is to register and you have access. It is as easy as setting up an email address,” he said.