As an IT firm, can we know the core areas that AkolagTech is focused?
AkolagTech (/HacholagTech/) is a premier enterprise managed IT solution provider specializing in providing managed and un-managed IT services, cloud solutions, and hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses. We have our core services such as Managed Hosting Solution, Business Continuity Solution, Cloud Solution, Systems, Network and Security Solutions, Procurement Services – Hardware and Software also Digital brand solution. Over the years, our expert team have been servicing various industries and delivering world-class solutions in Nigeria.
As a managed service and cloud solution provider, are you in partnership with global renowned firms to deliver topnotch cloud solutions to Nigerians?
Yes, we have a partnership with the big tech company. We also leverage data centers’ infrastructure across multiple regions, allowing us to stay close to our customers. We leverage some of the most significant data center facilities in the world, cloud computing providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and more. We are deploying Cloud infrastructure and Datacenter locations in USA, Europe, Asia and Africa
Most Nigerians don’t understand the concept of latency, do you think its advisable to host locally?
Latency is significant for the website and other web applications; we are in the era of fast speed internet, and getting the right information to your consumers faster is a must.
I believe it is advisable to provide quality service for your customers no matter where the hosting server is. However, the business has to understand the urgency of keeping up with their competitors. If you have to host your website or application locally, I recommend that you consider the latency. If the contents take a longer time to deliver to the end-user, this can undermine the service quality. If you are hosting locally and there is high latency, I will suggest leveraging a CDN (content delivery network) to improve the performance. In Nigeria, latency is quite common, so some businesses are looking for better ways to improve their services by leveraging the best hosting solution.
Are you hosting locally?
We provide the best hosting experience for our clients, either locally or not. We support a client that prefers to host locally. We also offer the best advice in choosing the best technology that delivers the best user experience. Internet and the current trends in technology is blurring the national boundaries and that is what we have seen and we would be seeing thing in near future. What is imperative is our ability to satisfy our clients by delivering top notch services.
Downtime and support services are what scare firms from hosting locally. How do you handle downtime?
If you run a critical application, e-commerce website, or any other website or application and requires high availability, the outcome of downtime can be very costly.We(AkolagTech) provide the best hosting platform that is resilient. Akolagtech hosting platform was engineered based on necessity. We need a robust platform to develop our web application, website and hosted software. We need technology that can scale as we grow, it must be secure, and fast. We build the hosting platform ourselves that addressed our needs: high availability, resiliency, and durability. In that aspect, we decided to provide the same platform to other businesses. Our hosting platform is managed by highly skilled IT staffs with more than 15 years of experience in cloud computing, hosting services, IT services, and support that have operated websites such as NYTimes www.nytimes.com with over 1M unique visits a month.
Tell us about your Virtualization and Cloud Computing Solutions?
Virtualization and cloud computing are the process of facilitating data center infrastructure into scalable infrastructure. Our staff hand holds the operation of transitioning your IT infrastructure into a virtualized and cloud environment. By simplifying our client infrastructure, we make it easy to scale. We help our client set up a private cloud on-premises with the best virtualization and cloud solutions. We also make the transition into the cloud seamlessly.Besides, cloud computing adoption in Africa, Nigeria is very low compare to a developed country; moreover, India is a developing country like Nigeria, but their cloud computing adoption is higher than Nigeria. The cost of computing resources are getting cheaper yearly, so we see a significant opportunity in cloud adoption in Africa in the next five years.
What are the core challenges that indigenous ICT firms like yours face in this country?
Lack of adoption of the latest technology, and also regulation. We found out that some of the significant big enterprise businesses are struggling to adopt the newest technology. We understand that change is difficult, and learning new technology can be overwhelming. Also, the lack of technology investment is another challenge among small, medium, and big enterprise businesses.
How can government be supportive to indigenous IT firms like yours?
Provide regulation and tax credit for the companies to adopt the best technology. The government should make education is technology a priority. Support technology company like by encouraging companies to adapt and innovate in the latest technology
Do you think that our digital policies such as broadband etc are in tune with the global realities?
I think Nigeria’s digital policies regarding broadband by the Nigeria Communications Commission proposed in 2015 to transition the economy into a digital economy through investment in digital infrastructure have significantly improved the broadband infrastructure. We see the company utilizing high-speed broadband—however, the high-speed internet is costly, and only a few can afford it.There is still improvement to be done; Nigeria is still growing in broadband and accessibility compared to other countries.
Data sovereignty is one thing that many firms still don’t get. With a lot of big firms hosting overseas. What is your take?
My take on this is businesses are looking for ways to save costs, and sometimes hosting content locally can be expensive compare to hosting it overseas. I believe every business should take data protection and privacy very seriously, regardless of hosting locally or overseas. It is the responsibility of hosting providers to make sure their customer’s data are well protected. We make sure that data security is our top priority.
What is unique about your Data Management?
“Our staff hand holds the operation of transitioning your IT infrastructure into a virtualized and cloud environment. By simplifying our client infrastructure, we make it easy to scale. We help our client set up a private cloud on-premises with the best virtualization and cloud solutions. We also make the transition into the cloud seamlessly.”
