The management of MainOne’s Tier III Data Center, MDX-i is lending its voice to the call by the Office for Nigerian Content in Information and Communication Technology for Nigerian companies to host their data in-country, to avoid further foreign exchange losses.
Speaking at the First Annual Summit on Data Localization, organized by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) through the Office for Nigerian Content Development in ICT (ONC), the company’s Data Center Product Manager, Vremudia Oghene-Ruemu highlighted the benefits of hosting Nigerian data in-country, not only in terms of foreign exchange conservation, cost reduction, job creation and increase in tax revenues to government, but also underscored the security risks attendant in hosting sensitive data off-shore.
Oghene-Ruemu in his presentation on “Local Infrastructural Capacity for Data Hosting”, noted that the increased adoption of ICT and in particular E-Government, E-Commerce and E-Banking has made data hosting inevitable, but decried the practice where Federal MDAs and large Nigerian businesses host their servers offshore, which exposes them to huge security risks, in addition to revenue losses resulting from capital flight to international companies. He said that the conference on Data Localization would not have come at a more auspicious time, as regulatory policies constrain businesses from sourcing foreign exchange as easily as they had in the past to effect payments to offshore vendors and noted that the commercial data centers in Nigeria now offered world-class capacity to meet those requirements.
According to him “There is nothing available in offshore facilities that Nigerian Data Centers do not have. Nigeria has circa 5000sqm in Tier III DC space, certified by various international organizations. Our carrier neutral data center, MDX-I is not only Tier III and PCI DSS certified; it also has ISO 9001 and 27001 certifications, and offers 99.982% availability, in addition to multiple layers of security. We are currently the largest in West Africa, and recently received the Frost and Sullivan award for providing advanced Data Center Infrastructure in West Africa”.
Mr. Oghene-Ruemu re-affirmed the comments of the National Coordinator of ONC, Inye Kemabonta that data is the currency of an Information Society and lifeblood of any nation and urged for policies to ensure that the country’s Intellectual property is adequately secured.