A "Novell" experience for WWF, Eastern Africa

Net services software provider, Novell Africa is experiencing rapid growth in the Eastern African market.

"Our strategy is to not only to continue to support our existing clients, but also to expand our business in this region by giving the end-user a solution that meets the requirements of stability, cost-effectiveness and scalability," says Graham Hallworth, Novell regional manager for sub-Saharan Africa.

One such end-user is conservation organisation, WWF.

WWF is working to curb the degradation of nature and to improve and promote social and economic activities that enable natural resources to regenerate. The organisation has identified critical ecosystems whose conservation is absolutely necessary for the future survival of mankind. These are forests, freshwater and marine ecosystems and the Savannahs, which harbour the vast majority of the world`s natural resources from which most of the environmental goods and services are derived. WWF is also working on the thorny issues of climate change and pollution, the two most significant destroyers of nature.

WWF`s Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office (EARPO) is one of five field offices that make up the organisation`s Africa and Madagascar Programme. WWF works through a global network with more than 1 000 projects in over 90 countries. It has 50 country and regional offices, and five associate organisations.

"As part of a global network in a highly dynamic world, fast reliable and secure information and communication technologies are central to the operations of WWF EARPO," says Henry Kamau, MIS Officer for WWF Eastern Africa. "Every minute of each day, EARPO receives information from far-flung parts of the WWF network and similarly sends out information. Consequently, networking is a primary model of working within WWF."

After exploring several options, in July 1998 WWF EARPO decided to invest in Novell, which is the standard Networking Operating system in all WWF offices globally.

"WWF EARPO plays an indispensable role in promoting environmental conservation in Eastern Africa," says Hallworth. "By providing essential technology, we are helping to ensure that they carry out their mission as effectively and efficiently as possible."

WWF EARPO currently uses Netware 4.11, although Kamau says there are plans to upgrade to NetWare 5.1 in August 2001.

"EARPO has a file server and a gateway server connected to all workstations," Kamau explains. "For our email communication, we use GroupWise version 5.5 on a GWIA Gateway server. This platform supports approximately 25 users who benefit from the synchronized address book from all our offices globally."

According to Kamau, Novell`s technology has proved to be extremely efficient in information exchange, especially as far as timesaving benefits and cost-effectiveness are concerned. "Novell products are renowned for their stability, security and flexibility, as well as their capacity to rebuff all sorts of viruses. Additionally, it runs well in different environments."

Additionally, Kamau says Novell continues to provide opportunities for upgrading the skills of EARPO`s IT specialist, in line with new technology releases. "This enables us to always be at the cutting edge of new developments."

Hallworth is bullish about the vast market potential that exists in Africa. "Several countries in this region that were previously economically and politically restrained have made tremendous progress in, for example, establishing a satellite or microwave communications infrastructure," he says. This opens up tremendous opportunities for us."

Training is also high on Novell`s agenda and the company has established training centres in several African countries. "These centres enable us to offer an even better level of service in terms of product training, not only to our resellers, but also to the end-users of our products. Unless our resellers and end-users are not properly skilled, they cannot fully utilise the technology we`ve provided," Hallworth concludes.