RubMinds TechBlogA poet's candid snapshot of ICT events, milestones and issues in Nigeria
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August 16 2010: BCX Networks Ltd (Business Connexion) Nigeria is certified Gold by Cisco Systems having met the requirements for personnel, specialization and and support. The Cisco Gold Certification for West Africa proves that BCX Nigeria is qualified to sell, install and support Cisco solutions in West English Africa.
The S.I. industry has news that BCX, a technology partner, will use products from WAVION and XIRRUS to deploy and achieve a high-capacity wireless mesh (wifi) for every point on the Nsukka and Enugu campuses, even on tree tops and tunnels. It is necessary to stress that WAVION wifi radios are the farthest-travelling and most effective wifi base-stations in the world.
Present at the project’s ground breaking ceremony and award of contracts were the Vice Chancellor of the School and other academic staff and students, Nyimbi Odero, Rodwell Zvarayi. the media and stakeholders.
According to the Director of Information Communication and Technology/Innovation Centre of UNN, Dr. Christian Bolu, the project with Monday’s start-up launch would also mark the commencement of the implementation of the institution’s ICT strategy programme. Bolu stated that the project when fully completed would be the largest university wireless network in West Africa. He explained that Google would pay for the international portion of the bandwidth for three years as well as provide a minimum of 25 Mbps per annum.
Google, one of the biggest companies in the world will partner with BCX, HP and Cisco and will provide at least 25Mbps of international internet bandwidth for about 40,000+ users.
Interestingly, SIWES has reportedly contracted all final-year Elect Elect students to BCX for their Industrial attachment for at least 3 months in the knowledge exchange program, as part of the deal, the media was told.
All eyes are on BCX to deliver the solution according to the scope of work and expectations of the public (in terms of benefits) and the hand-over date/ceremony, as the countdown on the School’s official website points to early August, 2010.
We were unable to contact Olugbenga Akano, the Lead Wireless Expert who reportedly designed the network considered to be Africa’s biggest wireless network, and his team. Nigerians should say a big Thank you to Google, HP and Cisco for supporting education in Nigeria and congratulations to UNN, the first to benefit from this google initiative.
Further reading: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/06/01/how-google-mtn-others-connect-in-n3b-unn-wireless-network-project/
Unified Threat Management (UTM) to penetrate the Nigerian ICT industry
As SMBs and enterprises continue to yearn for managed security services, UTM has emerged as the most likely long-term solution to their ICT problems. Some of the UTM Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) sell recurrent user licenses to help reduce CapEx and TCO. This alone has attracted the interests of Microfinance Banks, Insurance companies and Start-up businesses. To the best of my knowledge, WAEC and Dangote presently use Elitecore Cyberoam UTM.
Why UTM?
A unified shield due to their multiple security features and affordable pricing, the UTM appliances have emerged as a two-way shield, for customers as well as channels. It secures the IT assets of customers and makes the businesses of channel partners recession-proof, offering them sustained sales and services revenues UTM is an outgrowth of security appliances that initially offered basic functionalities like firewall and antivirus. Today’s UTMs offer eight to 10 security features. These features are firewall, VPN security, automatic fail-over, load balancing, bandwidth management, URL filtering, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, antivirus, and anti-spam. Since they pack so many features at a relatively low pricing, UTMs have always been targeted at SMBs and mid-market customers right since the early days. Some of the brands who operate in this category are Checkpoint, Cyberoam, Fortinet, Gajshield, SonicWALL, StoneGate, and WatchGuard.
END-POINT SECURITY
It has been years since a firewall that enforces policies based only on source-destination-service has been sufficient. Trusted end points harbor malware, are controlled by attackers, and are launching points for attacks. Network security solutions must be in-line and inspect all the traffic that passes through them. They must look for viruses, worms, exploit traffic, and even unusual behavior. IDC dubs these solutions “complete content inspection” firewalls. Many vendors refer to them as UTM, Unified Threat Management.
One aspect of a secure network that is often overlooked is that the computers on the inside of the network are often the danger. It could be an infected computer brought in by an employee or contractor, it could be a poorly patched server that has been compromised by an outside attacker. Even the smallest organizations have to invest in network security solutions to block attacks from devices on the inside of the network. This is accomplished through network segmentation and deploying content inspection capabilities internally. As threats multiply watch for solutions that either sit on top of the access switch or incorporate the switch in their configuration.
Cyberoam Authorized Partner: BCX Networks Ltd, info@bcxng.com, , +234 (0) 702 533 7980/81
Request for a demo/eval unit, test and buy.
References:
http://www.channelbusiness.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2025&Itemid=78