Thursday, June 16, 2011

Updates from the Organizers of The Summer School World Series.

By Ubong Udoh

The Summer School World Series has been postponed till 2012 from the organizer, The SYSPERA Consulting Group. We decided to postpone this event because we want to offer our participants the very best.

Event schedules, subject matters and locations would be published as soon as possible. We want to thank all our esteemed would be participants for believing in us and urge them to keep a date with us next year across major African cities.

Yours in Service

Ubong Udoh

Chief Executive Officer, The SYSPERA Consulting Group

Thursday, May 12, 2011

40 Africans Perspective on Cloud Computing : Video Documentary Project

Cloud Computing has been grossly misunderstood by a lot of people. Why some see it as the latest buzzword, others see it as a glimpse of the future. The definition of Cloud Computing is multi-faceted because people define it based on their own perspective.

We been running an independent research on Cloud Computing in Africa for the past 6 months and I need to get your perspective on Cloud Computing. What we intend to achieve with this is that I want to show that though our definition of the subject matter is singular, yet we have a shared understanding of it. We would also write a book based on the feedback I get.

We would also run a video documentary of this research. On the interim, what we need is your definition of Cloud Computing in text. It should be short and simple because we would be getting feedback from 4o African Experts on the subject matter.

Please send your thoughts to ssworldseries@syspera.com. Looking forward to getting a reply from you.

Kind Regards!

Ubong Udoh
Summer School World Series Programme Chair
cc:The African Summer School on Cloud Computing, Cloud Identity and Virtualization Technologies




N.B: It should be in this format. These where the earlier feedbacks I got from two colleagues.

"The way I understand it, “cloud computing” refers to the bigger picture…basically the broad concept of using the internet to allow people to access technology-enabled services. According to Gartner, those services must be 'massively scalable' to qualify as true 'cloud computing'. So according to that definition, every time I log into Facebook, or search for flights online, I am taking advantage of cloud computing."
- Praising Gaw
"I view cloud computing as a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills to acquire. Cloud computing is the realization of the earlier ideals of utility computing without the technical complexities or complicated deployment worries."
- Jeff Kaplan

Saturday, February 19, 2011

CLOUD COMPUTING – LATEST BUZZWORD OR A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE?

By Ubong Udoh

Cloud Computing has steadily been growing in popularity in the IT industry since early 2007. In non technical terms, I would define a CLOUD as a (C)OMMON (L)OCATION- INDEPENDENT (O)NLINE (U)TILITY on (D)EMAND SERVICE.

In recent times, I’ve been engaged in discussions on Social Networks most especially on Facebook as regards Cloud Computing because I’ve been a cloud evangelist a little over a year now and I’m dismayed by the pessimism a lot of Nigerian techies posit in these discusses.

First and foremost, there have been myriad variations on the definition of the Cloud. Everyone has a different perspective and understanding of the technology and the misconceptions surrounding the subject matter was obvious when Steven Ballmer, Microsoft CEO had problems communicating his company’s cloud strategy & infrastructure, Microsoft Windows Azure to a select group of C-level executives last November.

The vagueness surrounding this ‘phenomenon’ is largely attributed to what I call the ‘hype cycle’. Since February 2007, Cloud Computing has been a buzzword for enterprises and Governments that are looking forward to saving costs and reducing their energy usage and carbon footprints.

For my non techie audience, Cloud Computing is basically an outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand and a somewhere on the internet experience that is always offered as a service. Even if you are not a good technology adopter or in technical parlance a ‘digital immigrant’, you would be surprised at how much you interface with the ‘Cloud’.

The mobile phones we possess, the email addresses (Yahoo!, Windows Hotmail, Google Mail etc) we have, the Instant Messengers (Blackberry Messenger, Yahoo, Windows Live, Nimbuzz, Meebo, 2GO, eBuddy etc) we use to communicate on the go are typical examples of Cloud Computing services.

It’s as a result of the fact that the physical layer of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnect) model has been abstracted. In plain sense for instance, it means an Airtel subscriber should not be concerned about where the server serving him/her is located but his/her focus should be geared towards the service that’s been delivered.

Neither should a Gmail user bother about where Google server is located because it’s completely unimportant. This generation is a serviced generation. Everything is now been offered as a service and the benefits of being serviced is too indispensable to avoid.

From a technical perspective, Cloud Computing is divided into 3 major tiers namely:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS): This is basically what everyone already has in form of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Wordpress, the various search engines, wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter etc.
2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is an offering Amazon pioneered as the grand-daddy with the Elastic Compute 2 (EC2). Developers and system administrators obtain general compute, storage, queuing, and other resources and run their applications with the fewest limitations. This is the most powerful type of cloud in that virtually any application and any configuration that is fit for the internet can be mapped to this type of service. Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure is known as Windows Azure.
3. Platform as a Service (PaaS): This is the newest entry where an application platform is offered to developers in the cloud. Developers write their application to a more or less open specification and then upload their code into the cloud.

Highlighting all of these, the benefits of Cloud Computing to enterprises, individuals and Governments cannot be over-emphasized. Cloud Computing in every facet frees up budgets handcuffed by IT expenses. Instead of purchasing software licenses for new employees and locations, businesses simply add accounts to expand computing capacity.

Governments would benefit from it because it pools all disparate sectors as a whole and it would ensure openness, accountability and prudence. For instance, the Nigerian Government can create a cloud where citizens pay their tenement, water and electricity bills on a central platform. The Nigerian Police Force can create a Cloud Infrastructure we would name in this instance, The Nigeria Intellipedia® that would have sub cloud systems like The Police Reporting Software® which advertently takes away statements from being on paper to a central database and makes crime management a less cumbersome issue.

In moving with the times and trends, some young Nigerian entrepreneurs are creating overtly ambitious private Cloud infrastructures which is beginning to generate positive ripples. First is the Naija Info Bank ® which when completed would be the largest Human Resources database in Sub-Saharan Africa with a capacity of over 80 million users and secondly www.traffic.com.ng which is still in its Beta Phase and after completion would offer descriptive traffic report with GPS Coordinates of every nook and cranny of Nigeria. All you have to do as an end-user is to plug into the cloud and enjoy these services.

The odds are good that within the next five years, the popularity of Cloud Computing within the enterprise and government would grow significantly. Yet Cloud Computing alone is not the answer. The key to achieving great success is for enterprises and governments to use efficient software to integrate their existing on- premises infrastructure with the Cloud.

For a more detailed understanding of Cloud Computing, sign up for the largest Cloud Computing event in Africa this Summer in Lagos, Nigeria and secure your company and agency’s future in the Cloud at The African Summer School on Cloud Computing, Cloud Identity and Virtualization Technologies on www.SSWorldSeries.com

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Update on The Middle East and Asian Summer School on IPv6, MPLS and Next Generation Networks


.The Middle East and Asian Summer School on IPv6, MPLS and Next Generation Networks that is scheduled to take place in Beijing, China is still very tentative.

The organizers of the Summer School, SYSPERA are already in talks with partners in Tokyo, Japan as an alternate venue for logistics reasons currently being faced in China. Aside that, all other venues remain valid.

Take advantage of our early bird bookings starting February 15, 2011. Organizations would get a huge rebate when registering multiple delegates. The Summer School World Series would aggregate subject matter experts and it’s going to be a life and career changing experience for attendees.

Exhibitors should endeavour to book their stands and secure their company’s future in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

It’s a big deal!

On behalf of The Summer School World Series Planning Committee

Saturday, January 8, 2011

The Summer School World Series Debuts

This summer would be set agog with the debuting of The Summer School World Series®. Its novel, it’s big and would be exciting. With a global agenda set in place, it would be debuting in six countries and 3 continents.

Herewith is The Summer School World Series® calendar for 2011:

African Summer School on Cloud Computing, Cloud Identity and Virtualization Technologies. July 4-8, 2011. Lagos, Nigeria

African Summer School on Network and Information Security. July 18-22, 2011. Accra, Ghana

African Summer School on IPv6, MPLS and Next Generation Networks. July 27-31, 2011. Johannesburg, South Africa

Middle East and Asia Summer School on Cloud Computing, Cloud Identity and Virtualization Technologies. August 7-11, 2011. Dubai, UAE

Middle East and Asia Summer School on Network and Information Security. August 16-20, 2011. Doha, Qatar

Middle East and Asia Summer School on IPv6, MPLS and Next Generation Networks. August 25-29, 2011. Beijing, China

Participants and interested delegates should watch The Summer School World Series Blog for day to day update. The SSWorld Series website (www.SSWorldSeries.com) would be launched on January 24, 2011.