RubMinds TechBlog

SECURE EMERGENCY ICT STRUCTURES AS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

By: Christopher Odutola

Case study: BCX Networks Ltd: iLab, iCafe and iOffice

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Business Connexion, arguably Africa’s leading integrator of innovative information and communication technology (ICT) solutions, has delivered practical and cost-effective solutions to government and business across Africa since the mid-eighties. Business Connexion was founded in the year 1980 as a limited liability company, the company’s track record spans over 30 years and includes the design and implementation of several enterprise networks across Africa.
The 5000-strong team of ICT professionals, which are based in offices across Africa, have an extensive track record of delivering solutions to African governments, utilities and parastatals, and to the private sector across Africa.  The company has delivered ICT solutions to clients in the Financial services sector, Telecommunications industry, Mining and Exploration sector, Government Ministries, Healthcare sector and to Petrochemical companies throughout Africa.  

BCX Networks Ltd (www.bcx.co.za) provides a comprehensive range of solutions to clients, encompassing traditional detailed Telephony Solutions, Contact Centres and State-of-the-Art convergence solutions, broadcasting solutions and general networking infrastructure using Hawkstone Solutions and Products.

In order to deliver a world class service Business Connexion nurtures strong relationships with many of the world’s leading ICT companies including but not limited to Avaya, Cisco, EMC2, GFI, HP, IBM, Netapp, Wavion, NEC, Radwin, Proxim, Infosys, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Northgate HR, Novell, OpenText, Riverbed, Sage, SAP, SAS, Sendio, Stratus Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Systimax, VMware and Websense.

Over the past few years BCX has achieved many accolades relating to services, products and solutions it has delivered to customers.
Specifically over the last two years BCX was awarded the following niche market achievements from CISCO and other High Profile vendors….

  2007 Cisco Global Partner Summit
  Cisco Security Partner of the year for Emerging Markets: Middle East and Africa Region
  2007 Cisco Local Partner Summit
  Cisco Gold Partner of the year 
  Cisco Public Sector Partner of the year
  Data Centre Partner of the year
  Product Manager of the year
  Customer Advocacy partner of the year
  
2008 Local Partner Summit
  Public Sector Partner of the year
  Customer Advocacy partner of the year
  Data Centre Partner of the year

  2009 Global Partner Summit
  Public sector partner of the year
  Data Centre Partner of the year

2008/9
  Top IBM Business Partner
  Leadership in IBM BladeCentre Solution Deployment
  Outstanding IBM Information Infrastructure Storage Solution

 As such BCX has had to be innovative and professional in its delivery of solutions to African challenges and hence the following information is critical in all projects.

Introduction (case study: iLab)

It is inevitable in modern day ICT projects that initial plans will fail and in such cases, the best option is to have a backup plan with minimal effect on the overall budget. Sometimes the entire project can be screwed up due to unforeseen circumstances or inadequate planning and if there is no backup plan the failed project becomes another black hole to the company. Many well-meaning companies have tried in vain to give back to the communities by going the ICT way, providing Internet labs, libraries or centers for schools, higher institutions and rural communities. These deployments are often greeted with user enthusiasm and media publicity but in less than a year after commissioning a huge project, the site is often left in a sorry state. Why are these solutions short-lived and unsuccessful in the long run? The question is rhetorical as the answers stare right at one in the face:
1. Vandalism
2. Corruption
3. Use of sub-standard materials and devices
4. Inadequate planning
5. Lack of Support and Continuity (Management)
6. Inadequate Power and Technical resource
7. Inadequate training and education of end-users and operators
8. Lack of core ICT materials and values
9. Politics
I shall discuss each briefly and proffer solutions accordingly.

Vandalism: At a time when companies are trying to cut costs and justify every financial implication, it is hard to concede investment in ICT to vandalism but this is the leading cause of failed ICT projects in Africa (Nigeria inclusive). A well meaning company tries to build a 100-seater ICT laboratory for a federal university with burglary proof e.t.c., networks the building and sets up a server room; flat screen monitors, UPSes, speakers and other computer accessories, branded and ready for commissioning. The MD/CEO shows up few days later and commissions the project, the papers and TV spread it to all and sundry and an idle mind sits somewhere thinking of how to break in and steal the devices, if possible. The week following the commissioning, vandals either break in through the windows, doors, and roof or seize the guards and empty the Lab or just some expensive devices and make away with them without any trace. Replacement of missing devices takes a while and in the meantime, others take advantage of the backdoor to loot what is left of the building until the project fails completely leaving the community with a dead ICT lab and the public with false information that a lab exists in the school. Vandalism can only be resisted with anti-theft, vandal-proof ruggedized technology. The building itself must be very secure, vandal-proof, fire-proof, the seats properly glued to the classroom floor, the devices quite far from the window, the devices kept in a ruggedized, unbreakable enclosure. The LCD screens, often the easiest targets must be kept in tight enclosures such that only the display can be seen. Finally, fire, burglar alarms and GPS locators must be installed in the lab. The only thing that can be stolen from a secure lab is oxygen!  You need a bulldozer to stand a chance of getting away with scraps of damaged devices – the best you can get.

Corruption: Due to corruption, some attendants and ICT lab managers have resorted to using the labs for personal gains. They bring family and friends in and sometimes charge other users and fail to remit the money to the designated channel. I witnessed this in some of the sites I visited in Lagos and some northern states. Sometimes, students don’t even have access to the lab at all for reasons best known to the “man in power”. This anomaly can be corrected by using biometrics to authenticate each and every user sessions. This way, outsiders will not be registered by the authorities and students cannot login to the workstations upon expiry of their sessions. This implies that no one person can hold a workstation to ransom, browsing the internet all day while others wait at their mercy; everyone is provided equal access at specific times of the day (or sessions) and the benefit of having a state of the art ICT lab can at least “go round”. This approach was the deciding factor in the Zambian government picking a proprietary emergency ICT lab solution. The same issue faces the use of legacy ICT labs in modern Nigeria today and poses a threat to the development of ICT skills in our schools and communities.

Use of substandard materials and devices: This is obviously no news to us. Contractors are out to milk the well-meaning firms by all means and most of the time, low-quality materials are used in building the facility while cheap ICT components are either substandard or outdated often with no warranty or support. The end result is a faulty keyboard, flickering monitor, burnt CPU, creaking hard disk drive, broken seats, ants-infested tables, cracked ceilings and dead switches. Their short-term solution often outlasts the long-term agenda of the Investing company usually to the anger of the users who immediately form a bad opinion and blame the firm for giving them a “fake lab”. If you prefer an Apple iPod to a nameless Taiwanese mp3 player, you should know that quality outlasts quantity and pick the best, yet secure devices in the market. Not many contractors have good records if you bother to visit their previous installations. It is commonplace to see a 6-month ICT lab with 60% of devices faulty and without replacement. Materials must be vandal-proof, ruggedized and authentic with accompanying seals and warranty. Accept no average products e.g. UPSes and servers with no after-sales support or excellent rating.

Inadequate planning: Sometimes investing firms along with their chosen contractors have good intentions but overlook key factors due to poor planning. It is necessary to do a comprehensive site survey and interview users and operators before rolling out the ICT lab. A rural area without power supply would have to rely on alternative means of power supply, labs should not be situated in dark, insecure places with no illumination at night. Location of the lab must be strategic and not at random due to security reasons to avoid throwing seeds unto rocky soils and thorns.

Lack of Support and Continuity: After-sales support often determines the life of an ICT implementation. You don’t want to be stuck-in-active with a faulty device in the middle of training. Remote or on-site support must be available in order to protect your investment in ICT projects. Continuity plans must also be in place. ICT components are hardly relevant after 3 or 4 years, plans must be in place to upgrade software/hardware or other components of the lab with buy-back options, cheaper upgrade plans and replacement procedure agreed with contractor. Contractors without partnerships with OEMs usually do not do very well to keep this promise.

Inadequate Power: Like vandalism, this is a major issue in Nigeria today. Power is almost non-existent. Plans for alternative means of power supply must be provided. Diesel/petrol – powered generating sets, Solar powered inverters with batteries and wind-generated power plants are options that must be considered for stand-alone implementations especially in rural areas. Unfortunately, most ICT deployments in Nigeria require huge amount of power in order to drive the ICT labs. In a country where power is considerably scarce, the answer is to use energy saving alternatives e.g. thin-client technology, solar powered devices and low voltage specifications. I have, in the past designed a 48-seater ICT lab with two Air Conditioners, printer, giant LCD screen, routers and switches all of which were powered by a 5KVA generator. At a point, the school decided the lab would feed off its giant diesel-powered plant and it so easily did. I was surprised to see some of our local schools having to feed off the local transformer or PHCN pole directly due to the overall power ratings of the lab’s components. I should also mention that alongside cost of internet subscription (which is usually sponsored), power supply is the number one headache for ICT lab managers.

Training of supervisors and users: Commissioning the Lab is half the job done; the second half determines the success of the project in the eyes of the users. If the users are not impressed or do not explore the opportunities presented to them, then the project is just another failure. Supervisors must be trained to use and support all of the technology in the train-the-trainer mode so that they can educate first-time users and if possible impart knowledge based on the software contents of the solution. Unfortunately, most supervisors find it difficult to administer a server and schools have no e-learning software, the labs are more or less like cybercafés (sometimes even free). The supervisor or operator must be trained, practically.

Lack of core ICT materials and values: I sincerely hope other people reason with me that a modern-ICT lab should portray innovation and suspense. Labs now come with e-learning software, biometric authentication for each workstation, headphones and webcams for multimedia, 3G/GPRS enabled routers for use in places where getting internet connectivity will be difficult, secure LCD screen for interactive content and training e.t.c. E-learning Software can be customized to bear the logos and contents specified by the investor. These software can add value to the lab especially when such labs are dedicated to specific topics e.g. Graphics, 3D-modelling, Architecture, Sciences or Accounting. Also, as different people use the same workstations over and over again, viruses (the nightmare of every supervisor/operator) are likely to surface from flash drives, downloaded contents from the internet and external sources and systems are likely to crash. The answer to this is thin-client computing. This is how it works: the robust thin-client server handles all the operations and storage of the individual workstations meaning all documents, and profiles are actually stored on the server, the client only displays the contents to the user at the workstation. What this implies is that if the client crashes for any reason and needs to be replaced, the supervisor does not need to install any software on the replacement unit, upon connecting the client to the server again, all the user profile, programs and files of the faulty unit are transferred in minutes to the new one, minimizing downtime and interruption. Also power consumption is extremely low and management is pretty easy as the instructor controls the display of all the users from his/her central desk to ensure that no one is doing something else while training is going on.

Politics: Unfortunately, I cannot help in this regard. Politics can make a gigantic ICT project appear inconclusive and dead even when it is not. A project can be cancelled half-way even while the structure is being constructed. Also, a powerful person who sees no forthcoming personal monetary gains from the project will do almost anything to bring it to a halt. These things do happen especially when implementation takes quite a while, from 3 months to 2 years. While I cannot really help in this regard, my next and last topic can offer an alternative.

Why do companies consider a secure emergency ICT structure?
• While legacy structures require 3 months to 2 years to set up, a more secure, fully functional emergency structure is up in less than 7 hours.
• You do not need to buy a piece of land, you can lease one and relocate your structure in due time, that gives you more time to plan a more permanent alternative and protect your investment.
• Product Branding is very easy with these secure structures (outdoor advertising license required in some cases)
• Pre-networked, pre-installed thin-client technology saves power, time to deploy and provides for ease of operation and support with little or no need for maintenance
• E-learning software, Biometrics for sessions and giant LCD screens are provided
• In-built Cyber-cafe billing, management and monitoring software
• Anti-theft, Vandal-proof ruggedized (stainless steel) fire-proof technology implemented throughout.
• Evidence of longevity and 99% success rate in southern Africa.

Secure Emergency ICT structures can be deployed for Emergency Contact Centres, ICT labs for schools and communities, fully functional remote branches and secure mobile (temporary) offices. Units can be branded all over, inside and outside with logos, pictures and slogans of the Investor. Thus the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Investing Company to the community is almost incomplete without investing in secure ICT labs to reach out to more individuals and paint a better picture about your company in their minds. But when time is an issue, the answer is an equal if not better alternative on the fly.

Christopher Odutola is a Secure Emergency ICT structures (Hawk-stone)expert with successful implementations in South Africa, Zambia and Nigeria. This article was submitted to Communications Weekly and was published in week 1 and week 2 editions of September, 2009.