Which access medium would impact Nigerian consumer cloud experience the most, in 2012?

Hotspot Wi-Fi (ISP)

3G/HSDPA (Telco)

Wimax (ISP)

LTE (Telco)

Ethernet/ IDU/ Modem (ISP)

Click to vote: http://lnkd.in/XbuSta

With the rise of smartphones, handheld, PDAs and the Tablet boom, i would have to give it to the 3G, even old laptops now use 3G modems despite the crash in prices of Wifi modems from ISPs. Wifi would be next as most communication devices now come with Dot 11 G or N but the lack of wi-fi blanket limits the effectiveness. My iPad for example has only wi-fi and I have to envy other users with 3G. Unlike the case for consumers, the enterprise would still work with Wimax and Ethernet including microwave radios, satellites and cable to pull huge bandwidth for the office, the office can then distribute using wifi or RJ-45. The idea of the cloud is portability though and I see the consumers enjoying this tug-of-war.

Netbooks were the hype in 2009/2010 but not anymore. A sizable number of Nigerians still own them due to their portability and sometimes good battery life but not anymore. Samsung, the chief Android/Chrome agents hit the Nigerian market with the Solar Powered netbook that could last 14 hours, a must have for road warriors. With Samsung pushing the Chrome OS aggressively, who says the netbook won’t take that share of the consumer cloud access device in 2012?

Laptops are in abundance; students, executives and average workers own laptops. Some own more than one. Road warriors definitely have a laptop as well, similar to the Netbook in every way except for its bulkier size and faster processing power. Game lovers still prefer the laptop as do graphics editors. There might be more owners of notebooks than there are netbooks and cloud-based applications work on any platform, regardless.

The smartphone has become a must-have in the country today. People who have neither netbook nor notebook usually have at least a smartphone. Some phones are smarter than others though and nearly half of the Nigerian people have one of the iPhone, Android Phone, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile. Most of these phones support both wi-fi and 3G. As the cloud is basically internet browser-based, application specific solutions might have serious issues deploying on all smartphones. Phones with enhanced browsers would have better cloud computing experience as well as those with high developer patronage. Apple iPhone and Google Android have an edge though the growth of the BlackBerry has been astronomical in Nigeria. Mobile phones are likely to be used to access the cloud the most in 2012 owing to the sheer number of such devices and their readiness to reach the internet at the click of the button and Edge/3G coverage is almost readily available nationwide.

Tablets gripped the mobile computing market in 2011 as iPads, Galaxy Tabs etc shipped en-masse to Nigeria. Several people have junked laptops and netbooks for the sleek and energy-efficient tablets. Though limited in processing, storage and memory are rich in application and offer a whole new way to access online content. They however cost more than laptops in many cases. Mosty with wi-fi and optionally, 3G – tablets offer the best all-round cloud experience with mobility, battery life and functionality and would be number one access device among business people. Some companies have scrapped PCs completely and mandated all staff to get used to tablets.

Desktop – largely in use in corporate environments will continue to dominate in physical offices. The future is not bright for desktops though as far as cloud computing is concerned.

Nigeria’s number one cloud access device in 2012?

Netbook
Laptop/Notebook
Smartphone
Tablet/TouchPad
Desktop

Click to vote: http://lnkd.in/C2P2Cc

Every successful and growing economy needs energy to drive growth in all areas hence availability of energy can determine the gap between success and failure in developing countries. Nigeria has forced her people to generate their power supply, security, clean water, shelter, transportation and even food; the last five mean nothing without power supply. If the masses have to generate their power supply using petrol/diesel/kerosene then the cost of these in the market would directly reflect in the cost of goods/services across board. This implies that call tariffs, internet subscription, logistics etc might increase with no clear indication that salaries and spending would increase, giving rise to inflation. People are likely to burn more money than time in traffic especially in Lagos where time is directly proportional to money. In my opinion, cost of running the office on a daily basis would increase; this would also be affected by higher cost of rents and maintenance. Less power consumption would therefore mean less pending and majority would try to go ‘green’ by using Solar power, Batteries, Wind power, water and cut more costs by embracing virtualization and cloud computing. Since cloud providers already have their energy infrastructure, it would be wise to have them power all the huge devices while subscribers access the same services with low-powered devices e.g. Smartphones and Tablets that typically go days before recharging.

I am not in support of the removal of Fuel subsidy by the Federal Government due to obvious reasons: lack of refineries, lack of adequate power supply and lack of road infrastructure until the government can provide these basic amenities but in the ‘unfortunate’ situation whereby our fears confront us, cloud computing might be the saviour, for the time being.

Please share your thoughts.

I’m considering the cost of starting up a company. Other than paying salaries and other packages, entrepreneurs and investors also have to consider the cost of building IT infrastructure, data centers, LAN cabling etc then on to servers, racks, UPSes, Generators, IP Phones, Call Managers, Office space to accommodate all, office furniture, ergonomics, cooling, maintenance, depreciation and cost of IT personnel. The overhead becomes a problem and directly affects productivity levels, quality of operations, break-even point and competition. If all a startup needs is just an office space the size of a room, a customer-service agent who can double as a Personal Assistant to the Manager, HR/Admin and Finance, almost every other unit can be outsourced. Several logistics, event planning, customer care, printing, IT infrastructure, helpdesk, cleaning, assets management etc can be outsourced nowadays to a large extent. Cloud computing can help to provide effective collaboration from Email, Office, CRM etc to help ensure that every member of the unit has a measurable yet achievable target then there would be no need to have everyone sit in the office. Companies can then focus on their core business and outsource other departments.

This should improve worker productivity provided they have access to power supply and internet. Most businesses would then lay more emphasis on marketing and sales as they need to hit the road, wisely. The cashless economy we expect would properly fit into the mindset of the people who can now be flexible in every aspect of life including work and spending. Workers need not spend hours in traffic and can manage their time wisely to deliver on targets. I forsee less traffic on the roads during the peak hours and less people employing “house helps”. Parents can bond with family and hopefully more marriages working out

Do you honestly think Nigerian employees should be allowed to work from home in order to cut costs by embracing outsourcing (Everything as a service)? Now I see that CFO’s grin!

Security and compliance are the leading concerns of CIOs and CISOs today. But meeting
the requirements of increasingly demanding regulations while reducing exposure to the
new class of sophisticated threats can no longer be left to countless point products.
Today’s enterprises need a comprehensive, integrated auditing solution that is
economical to acquire, fast to deploy, easy to manage and scales to the largest global
networks. nCircle offers the world’s most comprehensive suite of products for automated
security and compliance auditing. With over 4,000 customers around the world, nCircle
has delivered proven solutions that answer the most important questions in today’s
compliance-driven enterprise:
• How secure and compliant is our network?
• Which top issues must we address today to improve security and achieve
compliance?
• Who is accountable and how are they doing?

nCircle Suite360 is the world’s most comprehensive security and compliance auditing suite that also provides agentless discovery.

nCircle Suite360 provides:
• Fast deployment, instant results, low cost management using agentless technology
• Unified view of security and compliance covering all networked assets in a fully integrated product line
• Analytics for streamlined IT decision-making with objective measurement and unified scoring
• Automated, continuous auditing delivering cost-effective, sustainable compliance
• Flexible pricing and deployment with an integrated, modular suite and subscription or perpetual licensing

Enterprise-Class Vulnerability Management
nCircle IP360
nCircle IP360 is the leading vulnerability and risk management solution, enabling organizations to cost-effectively measure and manage their network security risk. This market-leading discovery platform comprehensively profiles all networked devices and their associated applications and vulnerabilities, providing the ideal foundation for managing risk and automating compliance. In fact, IP360 provides over 40% more coverage of operating systems, applications and vulnerabilities than competing solutions, ensuring comprehensive enterprise network visibility.
nCircle IP360 performs a thorough vulnerability risk assessment of each discovered endpoint and applies advanced analytics to identify and prioritize the vulnerabilities that pose the most risk to critical systems. nCircle’s advanced analytics utilize a unique quantitative scoring algorithm based on several factors including vulnerability score, system asset value and network topology. The result is actionable data that enables IT security teams to focus on the tasks that will quickly and effectively reduce overall network risk with the fewest resources.

nCircle IP360 is used in more large networks than any competing solution, and provides
the following unique benefits:
• Comprehensive discovery and profiling of all network assets
• Customer-designated asset values to place security risk in business context
• Advanced prioritization metrics combine asset value, vulnerability score, and
network topology information
• Network topology risk analysis identifies the highest priority vulnerabilities
• Open architecture and API enable integration with existing IT systems
• Integrated web application scanning for production systems with nCircle
WebApp360

Continuous, Agentless Configuration Auditing
nCircle Configuration Compliance Manager
nCircle Configuration Compliance Manager automates enterprise-wide configuration auditing, change analysis and file integrity monitoring, providing continuous visibility into system configurations and the compliance impact of changes. Using application-specific scan modules that include databases, web servers, firewalls, anti-virus, routers and switches and Microsoft Active Directory, Configuration Compliance Manager discovers detailed configuration information about each networked device.
The integrated policy engine supports user-generated benchmarks and also includes a rich library of policies based on best practice recommendations from NIST, CIS and Microsoft, and policies for specific regulations such as PCI, Sarbanes-Oxley, NERC and HIPAA. Configuration Compliance Manager compares the actual configurations of related systems with these benchmarks and baselines.
Configuration Compliance Manager presents the results in a range of customizable reports, from technical reports designed for IT and security teams to compliance framework reports such as CobiT, SAS-70, or ISO 17799 to drive improvements in security and configuration compliance. Automated configuration auditing lowers costs and increases uptime by ensuring that systems remain configured in compliance with organizational policies.
Key advantages of nCircle Configuration Compliance Manager include:
• Next-generation agentless architecture delivers detailed information on the configuration of networked systems – servers, desktops, laptops and network infrastructure devices
• Built-in policy engine compares system configurations with standard policies and benchmarks – NIST, CIS, Oracle, Microsoft, SOX, NERC, HIPAA, PCI, and more.
• Hybrid assessment technology utilizes active scanning, passive (listening) discovery and patent-pending DynAgent technology for the broadest, most accurate intelligence
• Agentless file integrity monitoring including checksum verification, change originator, file size, version creation date and modified date
• Open architecture to operate as the source of policy and compliance as part of a federated CMDB, such as the HP Universal CMDB and the IBM Tivoli CCMDB

nCircle’s Agentless DynAgent Technology
Agentless Configuration Auditing, Change Analysis and File Integrity Monitoring
Gathering detailed system information required for configuration auditing, change analysis and file integrity monitoring used to require software (agents) to be installed on each audited host. Due to agent-based solutions’ high cost and deployment complexity, they were relegated to only a small portion of a global network’s total assets – generally just critical servers in the datacenter.

IRS document.zip

Important information about your tax return

We are unable to process your tax return

RIVERBED TECHNOLOGY

Companies of all sizes depend on the Riverbed Steelhead product family to accelerate the performance of applications over the WAN. Steelhead appliances and Steelhead Mobile deliver the highest performing and most scalable WAN optimization solution available, overcoming both bandwidth and latency problems to deliver LAN-like performance to branch offices or mobile workers across the globe. With Riverbed, users are more productive, data moves faster and applications perform seamlessly. Riverbed Technology brings the world closer, changing the way people work.

Accelerating Applications for the Global Workforce

Riverbed Steelhead products accelerate application performance

and data transfer over the wide area network (WAN), overcoming

bandwidth and geographical limitations to improve productivity

and enable global collaboration. With Riverbed, file transfers that

once took hours or minutes, now take minutes or seconds.

Workers today need access to information wherever and

whenever they work – whether at corporate headquarters, a

branch office on another continent, or on-site with a customer.

The demand for anywhere / anytime access to data puts

tremendous strain on IT to deliver an increasing number of

applications over the WAN.

Riverbed’s award-winning WAN optimization solutions

strategically enable IT to centralize and reduce operational

overhead and expense, while improving end-user satisfaction.

Riverbed’s products have been proven in some of the most

demanding and complex networks in the world, with thousands of

customers deploying Steelhead WAN optimization solutions.

The Riverbed Steelhead Family Product

Now Available: Virtual Steelhead

With the Virtual Steelhead, WAN optimization can now be deployed

in environments that have specialized physical requirements

such as ruggedization or space limitations. Dedicated hardware

appliances can be harder to integrate into these scenarios,

and a virtual appliance may be preferred. In addition, the Virtual

Steelhead appliance can be easily managed with industry standard

virtualization tools which streamlines the maintenance of IT

infrastructure in fully virtualized data centers.

KEY BENEFITS

Acceleration of key enterprise applications

Riverbed Steelhead products accelerate the broad set of

applications important to business. Riverbed application modules,

combined with the company’s data streamlining and transport

streamlining, deliver dramatic performance increases across the

WAN for all TCP applications, by up to 100 times.

IT infrastructure consolidation and virtualization

Consolidate file, email and application servers, and storage from

remote branches to cut costs and operational complexity without

sacrificing performance. Deploy virtual servers, desktops, and

applications with reduced bandwidth requirements and response

times, improving the end user experience.

Reduced bandwidth utilization

Companies that have deployed Riverbed’s Steelhead products

typically reduce bandwidth utilization by 60% to 95%, often

allowing them to defer costly network bandwidth upgrades.

Enhanced data protection

Organizations can eliminate remote backup infrastructure and

remediate the risk of data disclosure through lost tapes or media.

By speeding data transfer, Riverbed enables speedy, resilient

and secure replication and backup over the WAN, often reducing

replication times from hours to minutes.

Secure application acceleration

Riverbed is the only company that can optimize SSL traffic without

compromising the end-to-end trust model. Companies subject to

compliance regulations such as SOX, HIPAA, PCI or other security

requirements can deliver both performance and security for their

applications.

Visibility and analytics

Riverbed gives the visibility needed in order to determine where

problems exist, analyze how those problems can be addressed,

and then tune infrastructure in order to best solve those problems.

Complete WAN optimization solutions not only provide order of

magnitude performance improvements, but the ability to measure

and monitor those improvements across optimized locations and

other sites that could benefit from further optimization.

Enable the mobile workforce

Mobile workers often receive sub-optimal application performance

when they connect to resources from remote locations. With

Steelhead Mobile, IT can deliver local performance to remote

workers wherever they connect.

Virtual Steelhead appliance for custom deployments

Whether organizations need to support ruggedized environments

or need elastic capacity for their Steelhead deployment, the

virtual Steelhead appliance fits the bill. The virtual Steelhead

appliance also provides dual-ended virtualization capability wherein

organizations can migrate their infrastructure to a public cloud

without sacrificing application performance.

The Riverbed Difference :

Speed, Scalability, Simplicity

SPEED

Riverbed Steelhead products address performance limitations

using a multi-tiered optimization approach. Unlike older generation

technologies, such as wide area file services (WAFS) or file

caching, Steelhead products optimize traffic using a patented

application agnostic algorithm to achieve massive-scale data

deduplication. The Riverbed solution layers TCP and application

protocol optimization on top of its data reduction technique

to deliver a multi-tiered optimization strategy that sets the

technological high-bar for WAN optimization, and delivers

unparalleled application acceleration over the WAN.

SCALABILITY

Riverbed’s universal data store provides greater scalability than

per-peer storage models and reduces WAN optimization storage

requirements. By avoiding the per-peer storage limitation, companies

can easily scale to hundreds of sites with any-to-any connectivity.

Steelhead products also utilize a TCP-based transport, which avoids

the pitfalls of running a proprietary transport on a shared network.

The Steelhead product family supports up to 12 Gbps of optimized

throughput and one million concurrent connections. The product

family is one of the most scalable in the industry.

SIMPLICITY

Companies can deploy Steelhead products in a matter of minutes.

Steelhead deployments can be performed from a single console

with virtually plug-and-play installations, and the Riverbed solution

does not require any changes to clients and servers nor the use of

specific routing protocols. Steelhead products have been proven

in a broad range of network environments alongside VoIP, video

conferencing, and QoS, giving customers flexibility and seamless

integration with the existing infrastructure.

Moving into the Cloud

Whether companies are consolidating their IT infrastructure

to create a “private cloud” infrastructure or outsourcing their

infrastructure to Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) or Platform as a

Service (PAAS) vendors that provide “public cloud” infrastructure,

the limitations on bandwidth and latency still remain. End users are

far away from the data and applications they are trying to access,

which results in poor user response and inefficient data delivery.

Deploying WAN optimization appliances is a great way to defeat

both these problems, while saving money on costly bandwidth

upgrades. In short, WAN optimization can be the driving force to

enable consolidation to public or private cloud architectures.

www.riverbed.com

Who needs WAN Optimization more than Nigeria? Tell me, 160 million people with plenty of internet bandwidth but little, high latency interconnectivity (Managed Private Network, MPN) bandwidth, and so many branches, it is difficult to really consolidate and cut costs. Many IT Heads are torn between laying off technical staff, consolidation, increasing bandwidth, managed services, virtualization, cloud computing and what have you. The major headache is that voice and other value adding applications like ERP, CRM and some Core industry applications cannot be implemented. Less functional application cannot be junked. Bandwidth is never enough and Latency means long distance transfer is always going to be a problem. Disaster recovery and Remote backup is still an issue and IT departments have to spend hours after work, monitoring backups that take anything from 4 hours to 24 hours or a whole weekend.

Riverbed’s award-winning approach to resolve all of these issues at once is amazing and has been backed up by Gartner reports in the last 6 years as the number 1, leader in Wide Area Network Bandwidth Optimization and Application Acceleration.

Riverbed WAN Optimization can help to virtualize branch servers, accelerate application, free up bandwidth pipe for voice and other apps, speed up data transfer across the WAN and above all, prevent or even save on bandwidth upgrade by reducing amount of traffic needed on the WAN by up to 60 to 99 percent.

First Video Communications FVC is an award winning Value Added Distributor in Nigeria, West and East Africa. FVC has partnered with Riverbed to service Nigeria and West Africa as well as East and Central Anglophone Africa. FVC has been empowering and investing in Riverbed Partners in the region to ensure that they can sell, deploy and support Riverbed Projects in the region. Riverbed is a WAN technology often used by Banks and companies with branches and remote workers.

For more information, please see www.fvc.com

There has been various discussions, groups, forums, seminars, workshops, bootcamps, arguments, researches and road shows on cloud computing in Nigeria lately. please join the Cloud Computing, Disaster Recovery and Virtualization group on Linkedin to stay current.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Cloud-Computing-Virtualization-Disaster-Recovery-3785575