‘Cloud Computing Central to ICT Development Strategies in Africa’

African standardization experts have reiterated the importance of ITU-T’s cloud computing work to the continent, requesting in addition that ITU-T investigate cloud’s implications for Africa’s legal frameworks and overarching ICT development strategies.

These were some of the key outcomes to emerge from the 2nd Study Group 13 Regional Workshop for Africa on “Future Networks: Cloud Computing, Energy Saving, Security and Virtualization”.

The open-to-all workshop fed its conclusions into the ITU-T Study Group 13 Regional Group for Africa (SG13RG-AFR), the group tasked with coordinating regional contributions to the standardization work of ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks & cloud).

A panel discussion at the workshop called for prioritisation of work on cloud computing and in particular implementation of ITU-T standards in establishing cloud security and assurance frameworks that guarantee user data privacy.

As part of the workshop’s request for assistance with the legal aspects of cloud computing participants called for ITU-T to devote more attention to cloud service agreements as they relate to quality, security routes, the concept of classes of requirements, and prices of DSL connectivity.

The need for evaluation methodologies for the periodic analysis of cloud system performance is another demand African experts plan to address through their work in ITU-T Study Group 13.

African countries will capitalize on ITU-T cloud computing standards as they develop their broadband networks and increase Internet access speeds. Africa employs a futuristic view of telecommunications, with governments’ ICT strategies emphasizing the value of cloud computing to young people in Africa and the need to foster skill development in this domain.

The growth of the cloud ecosystem is also expected to result in immediate benefits to the African ICT industry, with local vendors enjoying new business in their supply of equipment solutions to support cloud services.