The reason why technology enthusiasts are celebrating the partnership deal between one of Nigeria’s contact centre operators, Consol and American based end to end infiniband and Ethernet solutions provider, Mellanox may not just be that the country has increased its Foreign Direct Investment base but the technology transfer potential the deal is poised to usher is a delight to experience. The deal allows Consol to integrate Mellanox’s solutions into its own architecture to ensure a technology handshake that would benefit both countries.Apparently with this in mind, Mellanox may have studied the Nigerian environment to be able to get the right solutions to solve specific problems because when Hi-Tech spoke to the company’s Director Project management ,Mr Ran Almog, the analysis he gave of the problems with Nigerian technology sector, particularly the power problem, did not reflect one who has only operated in the country for just a few months.

By Prince Osuagwu

WHY we would excel in Nigeria

Nigeria is a huge economy with a very wide market that can accommodate many players. As a company we are technology focused. We look for solutions to solve problems and wherever the problem is more extreme, the solution need to be more innovative, this is where we shine and where we can do better than anybody else in this field. Traditionally we were focused on largest data centers you can think of and in Africa, there is a huge problem in terms of the technicalities of the technological limitations that large web or data centres experience. But for us it’s a challenge and we have a team that is technologically savvy enough to tackle challenges.

The problem with Nigeria

Environmental condition here, particularly when it comes to power, is more stringent than in other environments. But we have solutions that can back up or build networks. The solutions are entrenched with high volubility indicators. We also have a power solution which comes with a solid battery backup for any data centre switch. This solution can sustain the switch for several hours in case of erratic power outage which is prevalent in this environment. Besides, with the Consol partnership, we are now more confident that we have a solid team back up, technologically, for even other challenges we may discover as we operate here in Nigeria

Green data centre solution
Green starts from power consumption and ends at power consumption. Over the last 15 years, Mellanox as a company has been dealing with high performance computing and this where high power consumption is a very strict requirement. There is always a very strict power budget to meet. This drove us to design our solution with the lowest power consumption. So from building a device, network and a complete database centre, we reduce the base line power consumption by over 50 percent. This will do Nigeria a lot of good.

Cloud infrastructure needed here
Although we have not come here to replace the existing cloud based and big data analytics providers, we will not only complement and help them provide a better solution that would enable them increase their Return on Investment, ROI, we can also help them improve on their own cloud infrastructure investment, so that it becomes a better one. Again, some companies prefer to keep their resources In-house and not put them in the cloud, so they will go in the direction of a private cloud. So we can provide solutions to help them design and build their own private clouds. We can take them through the levels, from service levels to technology levels to knowledge transfer levels. Obviously we promote the use of Mellanox equipments in the cloud, meaning that we don’t build cloud or provide cloud based services but the interconnect which allows them maximum usability of the cloud service to maximize ROI.“The less storage, computer and all that equipment that a company needs to stay profitable in the cloud is what we provide, we don’t compete with cloud services providers, not here or in any part of the world.

Nigerian data system are in silos, but no problem our solution addresses this kind of situation specifically. It’s a pin point precision type of solution. In order to have the data aggregated in one place, you need an infrastructure and this is exactly what we’ve been doing for over ten years now since big data was first stated. Our solution enables big data analysts have different data grouped into one place for proper reading an analysis.

Attraction for Consol
Even when comparing Consol to other partners we are working with worldwide, we see professionalism and the desire to add value. That, also matched our attribute as a company because our major aspiration is to excel and do what we do to the best of standards.

Investment projections in Nigeria
We just started here a few months back but our realisation now is that this is what we should have started long time ago. The prospects here are so encouraging and the business seems to be enjoying good patronage. Just like the way we started small in Europe and consistently built a large network of technological workforce, we think same thing will happen in this region. We are serious about investing in Nigeria and we are having good reason to do so.