There is an explosion of connectivity infrastructure currently taking place in Africa. And while this is to be welcomed, it also presents significant challenges for local, multi-branch and multinational enterprises.
So says Naresh Thukkani, Head of Fabric at inq. Group – a software-defined cloud connectivity solution – who notes that while enterprises can take advantage of the abundance of connectivity to boost their operations, they also have to deal with myriad challenges. These include navigating a complex, fragmented environment with limited access to the skills required to deliver on the promises of ubiquitous, always-on, secure and reliable connectivity
“In the past four years – since 2017 – international internet bandwidth connecting African countries has increased fourfold. In fact, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of internet connectivity has topped 45% during this period. That’s higher than any other region in the world. At the same time, the CAGR of actual traffic traversing all this connectivity has increased by over 40% – also the highest rate of increase anywhere,” he says.
However, intra-Africa traffic remains relatively low – at 14% – while 82% of all Africa’s internet traffic is directed at Europe.
This is expected to change as cloud adoption is booming across the continent, with Africa-based enterprises recognising the benefits of reducing their data centre footprints and leveraging the cloud for many applications.
The fact that Microsoft and AWS are already live in South Africa – and more big names are likely to follow – and the fact that multiple new data centres are under construction in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere, has probably helped boost cloud adoption.
COVID lockdowns further accelerated the adoption of cloud services, and SaaS CAGR is expected to top 23% through 2024.
Driven by digital transformation strategies, software-defined networking (SDN) technologies are thus becoming increasingly popular, particularly by multi-branch enterprises, because of the efficiency and agility – and ultimately a lower TCO – these are said to offer.
But to some extent, African enterprises have to play catch-up to take advantage of the abundance of connectivity now available.
“Despite the promising predictions for the future development of the African continent, companies operating in Africa are still limited by systemic obstacles, including lack of skills, insufficient investment, vendor lock-in and inadequate software development,” Thukkani says. For example, it remains a real challenge for many organisations to host edge routers that can interconnect their local branches.
In addition, many enterprises have tried to connect to the cloud by building multiple VPN tunnels. Managing a heavy mesh of tunnels for various clouds results in unpredictable performance and higher cloud egress fees.
The answer, he maintains, is network solutions that don’t require engineering expertise while still harnessing complex technologies. These solutions could reduce pressure on budgets, liberate enterprises from vendor lock-in and dependency, and fill the gap in skills.
Thukkani believes the concept of network as a service (NaaS) is one such solution.
“NaaS would also help enterprises embrace multicloud connectivity by enabling them to connect seamlessly and painlessly to any cloud provider from AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and others. NaaS providers could deal with availability, management and troubleshooting and deal with security requirements. And all this could be provided via a single, unified interface, reducing connectivity prices and lowering the risk of human error,” he concludes.
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