Mr. Folorunso Aliu, managing director, iTECO Nigeria Limited is a results-driven professional. His flair, tenacity and can-do attitude have earned him various certifications.

Aliu before his appointment as managing director in 2007 was head of Service Delivery – Network Solutions. Aliu is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science / Engineering and has a Masters in Business Administration. He spoke with chike onwuegbuchi.

iTECO and Information Technology Sector

iTECO Nigeria Limited is a foremost brand in the area of systems integration in Nigeria. What that means is that iTECO’s skills and expertise come to bear when you have different networks or different equipments and solutions on the network and you are looking or a single entity that would bring together all these different elements, all the networks to provide business solutions that meet customers’ requirement. iTECO’s major skill is on any product, and element on the network that runs on Internet Protocol (IP), bringing it together to bring out business solutions to our customers.

Breaches in Telephone

Let me take you back, when I was discussing I said iTECO is a systems integration company. Let me give examples of what you might need systems integration for; systems integration can apply in the area of network security, it can come in the area of just general routing and switching, that is basic connectivity between one bank and another, one company and another. What we also do is in the area of voice networks as well. We are also in the area of audio-visuals or what is known as collaborations – video conferencing, tele-conferencing, audio bridge and things like that. Now, you asked a question about security – you have breaches in security if things are not done as they should be done and followed up. In security, we have what is called ‘the security wheel.’ Security wheel simply tells you that security is not a one-time thing. You look at the system, you appraise the system, you put in place security measures, you monitor the security measures, you improve on the security measures and you go back again to appraise the system so that you are always one step ahead of whoever wants to breach your security system. People look at security as a one-time thing – oh, I spent one hundred thousand on my security solution and that is it. Thank you! You can go away. It is an on-going event; you do not put security once and you stop because everyday, especially on the Internet people are bringing on newer things; newer threats arise everyday. The solution you put in place yesterday will probably not be able to mitigate the problems of today and that is why you need to consistently monitor and ensure you are in order. But in our environment, people see this as a waste of money. It is important and a continuous thing; just as business is a going concern, security requirement is a going issue too.

Unified Communications

From the word unified, it means you are bringing in different elements to a single point and maximizing your investment. Let me give you a typical example of Unified Communication; you have a telephone system back in the days, when someone calls you and you are not in the office; that is it. You cannot be reached. You have e-mail system; someone sends you an e-mail and if you are not there, that is it. You have a GSM phone; if someone calls you on it and you are not there, that is all. But Unified Communications in a nutshell, brings all these things to a single point. Let us assume that you are not in the office and have traveled to America, would it not be good to know that if someone calls you on your desk in the office, your phone rings three times and it is automatically passed on to your GSM and then it is converted to text and sent to you; everything seamless. So that, at any point you are reachable, you are able to maximize your investment because everything has been unified – you have what is called text to speech and speech to text, in this case, I can record my e-mail as voice and it will be sent as e-mail for me. So, Unified Communication does those things – to distinguish between different entities. For example, most banks today were still in the era of general banking, over-the-counter solutions and all that; but you can actually build solutions that will help people especially in retail banking that Nigerian banks are trying to move into; Unified Communication is a veritable tool in the hands of these bankers if they want to do proper retail banking. You can reach your target audience right in their homes; there are various services you can deploy on the phones and other network elements that your customers carry. Mobile phone is a veritable tool for banking; it is not just for checking account balance. It is a proper banking tool that allows for easy communication between banks and their customers as well as enables the deployment of several other services.

Making IP Networks More Effective

I tend to disagree with you that we do not have terrestrial links because we have that in the country right now. MTN, Globacom have run some; Celtel has started out on that, even Visafone too. What we do not have yet is the aggregation of all those links. The bottom line is that they are there. 21st Century as far back as four years ago had actually laid a fiber ring all over the Island. Let us take Lagos for example, most of the business concerns are concentrated on the Island and right now if you need fiber connectivity on the Island, it is something you can get within two days. I understand that we still have extensive Vsat installation but I disagree that we do not have terrestrial infrastructure. Having said that, this Unified Communication can be seen from different strata – we have the intra-company usage, the inter-company usage and the global connectivity. In intra-company, you do not rely on the extensive external fiber to do this. Between one company and its branch office for example, you have some kind of connectivity that they are doing today. All Nigerian banks toady are online, real time. They are using that link for something. What some of them are doing is to maximize the use of that bandwidth which is what the real question is. The bandwidth we have today; what are we doing with it? Do we even know what is going over the bandwidth? How can we maximize the use of the bandwidth because it is expensive? That is one other thing that iTECO can do. iTECO is a foremost name in network management. We can give you what you call visibility into your bandwidth utilization. We can help you to maximize your bandwidth utilization so that you do not end up spending unnecessarily on increasing bandwidth while in fact, that is not what you need. My point is, yes, you have a lot of Vsat installation but you also have fiber optic installation but more importantly is what is going over your bandwidth and how are you utilizing it. Network management solution is what you need to do that. People are doing Unified Communication – the likes of Shell, LNG are involved in this. Different companies operate at various levels of Unified Communication. The maximum you can get from Unified Communication depends on how well you can use your imagination. The amount of services you can run on your mobile phone is only limited to your innovative power.

Approach towards Aggregation of Fibre Infrastructure

It is not duplication because the bottom line is Globacom has its own traffic route; all of them have their own traffic routes and patterns, so they need the backbone to be able to carry their traffic. However, there should be inter-connection between them, that is what I am talking about so that we can have ISVs. ISVs can do virtual carriage of data and voice. They do not need to build their own infrastructure. What I am saying is that, instead of Globacom just owning the whole thing and we are not sourcing from anybody apart from Globacom, they could come together as a majority so that they can carry traffic from others. We do services, not just data and voice. There are lots of services. If all the fibers that we are laying around are just for data and voice, then it is a waste of energy. They are laying fiber for all the other services that you can run on that; talk about video calls and other enhanced services. You have what is called Multi-Protocol Legal Switching (MPLS) that is the protocol they are running now on the core of their networks, to be able to carry out all these services and deploy them to the customers.

iTECO and Cost of Redundant Data Centre

Having a disaster recovery site is necessary now for big corporations because the principle behind it is, even if there is a disaster or a breakdown, service should continue. That makes a lot sense and things that are put in place would ensure this is done. Most banks today have offsites. What baffles me is that an entity has a private recovery site on Victoria Island; they have another one in Apapa. If you have a private site here, the minimum I am going to expect is to have a disaster recovery site say, in Abuja because whatever happens in this region should not break down the two sites. As much as possible, there are standards to how these things should be at the minimum. You can do what you call ‘server hotels’ or ‘IT hotels.’ What I mean by that is that instead of Bank A, B and C; each building their own site, you can actually collocate with the third party who is the service provider and all of them will have a secondary link through this place either with their own servers or with the server provided by the service provider and each would have its own storage and slot as it were. That way, they only pay for space and usage on a regular basis as agreed. That would be a cheaper alternative. But, most banks because they are big, put their recovery sites somewhere else and can also use it for other things. So, it is a choice people make.