adopting in Africa
Digital transformation initiatives are sweeping businesses around the world, and with good reason. Among one of these innovations, the Cloud computing. Its delivery sophisticated information technology capabilities over the internet, and promises to bring substantial benefits to how organizations conduct their businesses. Although this service in Africa remains small relative to other global markets, it could represent a significant leapfrogging for local entities. This article explores some benefits that come with adopting cloud computing for organizations in developing economies, such as Africa.
Cloud computing to improve IT development in developing countries
In a context where companies are seeking to use efficiently their investments and minimize operating costs, cloud computing is seen as the solution.
Cloud computing offers a new economic model for ICTs, a model which heralds new modes of investing and operating IT resources, and could be key to speeding up digitization in developing economies. By adopting it, organizations and companies no longer need to invest heavily in such resources, which require burdensome and costly internal management. For some African sub-regions, its model may represent a solution to IT under-equipment problems, and its characteristics could be enable Africa to benefit from an opportunity capable of providing high-impact leverage to socio-economic development.
The situation of Africa’s cloud services industry
Despite the challenges it faces, Africa’s cloud landscape is improving, with signs of growth in the use of the service. Knowing that the location of data centres influences how efficiently data moves across networks, numerous global cloud entities have noticed this growth and taken steps to bolster it, in addition to the initiatives of local actors, which are already engaged in the adventure. Their located in Africa will significantly improve the speed with which the cloud’s capabilities can be accessed.
Challenges and Benefits for businesses and organizations
Generally, the low vulgarization of IT in Africa arises from a low internet penetration - knowing that internet is the basic requirement for application of cloud computing, in addition to this, the cost of IT infrastructure, cyber threats, Power Supply problems, and a host of other challenges. However, adopting cloud computing may be workaround solution to some of these challenges, resulting in several other benefits for local entities in their digital journey :
- Cost Reduction : cloud computing can reduce both capital and operating expenses of IT infrastructure
- Improve accessibility : access to computing resources is no longer restricted to fixed locations
- Data Security : in the cloud, data can be accessed, no matter what happens to on premises machines
- Flexibility : cloud computing gives real time services. If a company needs more resources, cloud-based services can instantly meet the demand. It is a welcome initiative for organizations of all sizes.
Summary
In simple terms, cloud computing enables users to access a scalable and elastic pool computing resources, as and when required. The fact that Africa stands to gain a lot from it, is not in doubt. The main challenge that face cloud services providers and their consumers on the continent remains broadband network access, which has been identified as the main service essential for a successful cloud computing offering. Similary, the main inhibitor of cloud computing worldwide is security and in Africa this concern is also becoming incresingly. Businesses need to take seriously this issue when planning cloud migration and sufficient provisions should be used to secure their cloud environment. Moreover, the vast majority of datacenters are located in developed countries. This deprives developing countries of achieving the same level of technological maturity as developed countries. The deployment of highquality datacentres with ensured continuity of service, rapid accessibility and secure data storage in line with international standards constitutes the second pillar of cloud computing for Africa.