‘No significant barriers’ to Africa’s adoption of advanced computing systems

22nd June 2018

By: Schalk Burger

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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The infrastructure environment can support complex, high-technology uses in businesses with inherent security and at high speed, says enterprise technology multinational IBM Systems GM Alex Gogh.

The basis for the wide-scale use of high-technology business systems, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning and cognitive systems, is a robust and secure infrastructure environment that uses Open Standards, can manage vast amounts of data, and scale up and out as needed.

“The latest systems launched by IBM can handle pervasive encryption done on the chip. This means security is in place from chip level upwards and all data is encrypted at rest and in flight.

“Security is a key determining factor for the success of these systems and must be present throughout the operational environment, as well as the technical capabilities to handle and process massive volumes of data.”

The company’s engineers – recognised experts and innovators in various technical fields who have end-to-end knowledge of infrastructure and insight into enterprise demands – are credited with creating pervasive encryption and security.

He says open architectures and the use of Open Standards are critical to enable these systems to scale up and out, inside and outside the company’s environment.

“IBM’s predictions are that more than 90% of enterprises will use multiple cloud systems in a hybrid cloud environment by 2020 and that more than 50% will modernise their data centre assets by 2020.”

Businesses will typically use about 80% in-house data and about 20% external data in various processes, which includes new high-technology systems and broadly used systems such as business intelligence platforms, says Gogh.

“Businesses have embraced data and are leveraging it, whether for banking, manufacturing, retail or healthcare. We believe that enterprises have the core information required to deploy advanced systems to support faster operations.”

Infrastructure must support this hybrid and open environment and facilitate access to more information. However, the performance and integrity of these data transactions are important to support the scale and speed of advanced systems and their broad adoption and use.

Gogh adds that there are no significant barriers to the adoption and use of advanced computing systems in Africa and developing countries, and that new hardware can be deployed and easily integrated with existing assets.

He also highlights the company’s involvement in the cloud and cognitive ecosystem, including the IBM Cloud Private solution, which builds on IBM’s cloud capabilities and open-source initiatives such as enterprise open-source multinational RedHat’s Open Shift initiative, which supports hybrid cloud environments worldwide.

“Businesses the world over view data as a natural resource. The necessary component is an effective infrastructure environment that can support the demands for agility and speed. IBM’s strategic approach of supporting hybrid and open-source systems in hardware and software has enabled our infrastructure portfolio to support mature and emerging market needs.”

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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