Johannesburg, 22 Sep 2015
Enterprises across Africa are increasingly innovating using cloud and mobile technologies, and looking to applications to improve business and gain a competitive edge. But, until recently, development challenges and the issue of latency threatened to derail their efforts, says Itumeleng Kobedi, product manager Group Cloud Services at MTN.
"In the enterprise application development space, there have been a number of challenges facing developers. Likewise, there have been challenges for enterprises seeking to benefit from cloud-based applications," he says.
In the application development space, securing the necessary budget and infrastructure for effective development, test, production and training environments is a common challenge, along with meeting business demands for faster time to market.
For enterprises seeking to gain from mobile and cloud-based enterprise applications, application performance has arisen as an issue.
"Whether you're looking to mission-critical applications or consumer-facing apps, latency has been a headache for CIOs looking to harness the cloud in recent years," he says.
"Latency sensitive applications can time-out mid-process, reducing productivity tremendously. And customer facing apps that don't function as expected can negatively impact brand perception. This issue has pushed back cloud adoption for many enterprises," says Kobedi.
In ensuring clients enjoy the same experience in the cloud as they do when the application resides within their own data centres, MTN Business will deliver hybrid solutions powered by MTN Business and Microsoft Azure Platform. The solutions will leverage on the ICT giant's global MPLS platform further, allowing clients to utilise Microsoft Express Route.
MTN Business also supports application development by delivering a service that gives developers the same look and feel as the Microsoft Azure Platform within the MTN Business Cloud environment. "Clients will have their own portals where they can fire up new servers and apps and benefit from a safe testing environment. Developers can focus on building applications, we will take care of the infrastructure and database," he says.
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