The cloud storage space is a huge market and because Africa has a burgeoning Cloud market, the continent is not left out of the huge revenue that comes from this but of importance is also the security of the trillions of data stored in the cloud. It gains access to digital technology, as it is also necessary to have a digital vault that also serves as a storage unit to keep confidential data. Aiming, to achieve this common objective, a series of other tech firms have also been featured in the combination of resources to ensure sensitive data is protected.
Data company Unitellas International Ltd partnered with Israeli firm Zadara Storage Inc to facilitate data storage solution to government agencies and local service providers to store and protect confidential data with the objectives to create empowerment for Nigerian companies to meet up with the same standard of the international Managed Service Providers (MSP).
Corresponding with what the partners consorted in, they intend to provide the infrastructure for local service providers and enterprise Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) storage solutions available on-premises or in the cloud, which cuts-out large Capital Expense (CAPEX) with lesser Operational Expense (OPEX).
On behalf of the consortium established between both parties on a data storage solution, the MD/CEO of Unitellas International Ltd, Mr. Smith Osemeke addressed the public on the launching in Lagos, he said that with the latest data protection tool, the local service providers and Managed Service Providers (MSP) would be able to offer computing services and data storage which accredits effective competition with prestigious public cloud providers in management, servicing, security, pricing, and infrastructure, but it is only accessible when subscribed to Zadara data storage services.
Focusing on the challenges linked with data storage, Osemeke said: “Local service providers in Nigeria cannot compete with international cloud service providers; this has caused a lot of companies in Nigeria to patronize international public cloud service providers by storing data from Nigeria into other countries thereby making it practically impossible to comply with the local content law policy.”
“As a result, financial service institutions, FSI, and other key organizations invest millions of dollars annually in acquiring and managing IT Infrastructures instead of focusing on their core businesses because they must have an IT department to build and manage their data storage infrastructure, a service that is supposed to be handled by local service providers in Nigeria. Onboarding to these services is cost-effective. Subscription to Zadara Data Storage Services is about four times lower than the Public Cloud pricing. On subscription to a minimum of 50 Terabyte (TB) scalable to the organization’s required needs.”
“Unitellas will deliver the storage device, hardware to the organization’s data center. Implementation involving the delivery and installation of the hardware will take approximately four weeks, and key IT staff of the organization will be trained on how to use the provided services.”
“As the sole distributor of Zadara storage solution in the region, Unitellas is willing to implement immutability storage, enterprise Data as-a-service, Infrastructure-as-a-service to all Government Agencies and service providers in Nigeria with no infrastructural cost only pay by consumption.”
In conclusion, Osemeke said: “We are willing to migrate all existing data of the organizations willing to subscriber to the Zadara platform without a fee.”
According to Osemeke’s explanation, this is to take on public cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud only this time, you get the same services in-country. But it’s interesting because you see, the three biggest public cloud service providers already represent about 63 percent of the public cloud space and it only makes sense that a cloud solution that can easily integrate with AWS for example be made readily available to consumers. Most cloud storage solutions provide a one-stop button to big public cloud platforms like AWS.
Unitellas is making it available in Nigeria with authorization from Zadara to enable local service providers to grant data back-up and storage stability with a less operating expense. In other words, stable back-up or storage insinuates that data stored is 100% encrypted and cannot be hacked or deleted by bad actors within or outside the organisation and that Is what the new partnership aims to bring to Ni9gerian institutions.
