Why MainOne’s MDX-I, Microsoft Cloud Computing Solution will Thrive

MainOne’s Data Center subsidiary, MDX-i, recently announced a new era in its new cloud-based service offering with Microsoft.

The solution which is built on Microsoft Azure’s enterprise grade infrastructure provides flexible, highly available and fully secure private computing environments to companies on a Pay-as-you-Go basis.

Meanwhile, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker collaborated MDX-i and Microsoft position that both large and small enterprises are looking for means to cut cost & complexity out of storage infrastructure.

According to IDC, the drive led to growth for new storage technologies in the second quarter of 2015.

Speaking on the partnership, Rob Lever, MDX-i’s business development executive, said the new cloud platform is a scalable and cost effective alternative to dedicated computing resources deployed in-house by companies and includes managed virtual data centers, virtual private servers, and virtual LANs to assure customers of high availability.

“Businesses are beginning to embrace Cloud services because it promises increased agility in addition to savings in OPEX and CAPEX. Our IaaS platform reduces complexity, interoperability, and security concerns of our customers. It provides them the benefit of leveraging our infrastructure, and the expertise of MDX-I and Microsoft, without their having to incur the substantial costs associated with deploying such solutions,” he said.

Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue grew 2.1% year over year to $8.8 billion during the second quarter of 2015 (2Q15), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker.

Revenue growth was strongest within the group of original design manufacturers that sell directly to hyperscale datacenters.

This portion of the market was up 25.8% year over year to $1 billion. Sales of server-based storage were up 10% during the quarter and accounted for $2.1 billion in revenue.

External storage systems remained the largest market segment, but the $5.7 billion in sales represented a -3.9% year-over-year decline. Total capacity shipments were up 37% year over year to 30.3 exabytes during the quarter.

"Companies are increasingly using new project initiatives and infrastructure refresh as an opportunity to deploy new storage technologies that are able to drive cost and complexity out of their existing storage resources," said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, IDC Storage. "This is pushing critical investment dollars towards technologies like cloud-based storage, integrated systems, software-defined storage, and flash-optimized storage systems at the expense of
traditional external arrays."

Speaking at the launch, Kabelo Makwane, Microsoft Nigeria’s managing director noted that “The Cloud OS Network is a worldwide group of select service providers that partner closely with Microsoft to offer customers hybrid cloud and Azure-enabled solutions. Uniquely combining expertise in Microsoft technology, customer requirements, and geographic specialization, Cloud OS network members deliver the Microsoft Cloud Platform customized to your specific needs.”

In his comments, Christian Landmark, CEO of PCL Mobisafe, the pilot customer of the new Cloud offering, expressed his confidence in the performance levels and reliability of the solution, “We chose MainOne as our Cloud Provider because of their excellent reputation for quality and support in the telecoms sector. We are impressed by their technical expertise and willingness to go the extra mile in their provision of what is a fairly complex solution”.

In alignment with global trends, MDX-i will over time offer a full set of integrated IT solutions, starting with IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and BaaS (Backup as a Service), among others.