SLT sets new standard in cloud computing with akaza
Thursday, 13 March 2014 00:00
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Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the premier ICT solutions provider launched its breakthrough cloud computing service, akaza, raising the bar in cloud computing in Sri Lanka to new heights.
The launch took place recently at the company’s Customer Forum organised for Government institutions at Waters Edge, Battaramulla.
akaza provides end-to-end cloud computing services providing business organisations with enhanced agility, quick service delivery, and cost efficiencies whilst providing maximum ROI as well as improved scalability.
Paradigm shift
SLT Group Chief Executive Officer Lalith De Silva commented: “SLT’s cloud computing solution akaza is definitely a paradigm shift in which Sri Lankan users store, access, and utilises data by remote means using the internet. The state-of-the-art broadband deployment of SLT that promotes consistent, uninterrupted, high-speed internet is the single most important component for the success of cloud computing in Sri Lanka. Our ambition is to fuel GoSL’s mandate for national economic progress envisioning a SMART Sri Lanka and going global with the SLT akaza cloud platform. Today, around the globe, high-end enterprises, private and public institutions, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro businesses tap into cloud computing to lower their costs and increase productivity. We see a huge potential in this area coupled with SLT’s superior broadband connectivity via FTTx, ADSL 2+, VDSL 2 and 4G LTE access technologies.”
akaza is a fully fledged cloud platform that enables diverse businesses ranging from top enterprises, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), micro level business organisations and government institutions as well as mobile customers to leverage on SLT’s vast ICT resources which includes being connected to the largest fibre optic backbone infrastructure in the country.
It eliminates the need for organisations to invest heavily in large servers, data centres and complicated software as well as technical experts, and thus gives organisations the freedom to focus their capital and energies on what they do best – their core business.
With the current transformations that Sri Lanka is going through and the economic developments in the country, akaza will especially help SMEs and micro level businesses to expand their businesses quickly and easily with economical infrastructure solutions and minimum capital investments.
State-of-the-art services
The state-of-the-art services currently offered by akaza includes Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) platform that provides shared computing power to customers, eliminating the need for customers to invest in expensive infrastructure and equipment.
SLT’s IAAS platform is spread across the company’s trusted and secure top tier internet data centres (iDC) located at SLT Headquarters and Welikada assures customers of a reliable and secure cloud platform with super fast processing speeds.
Through akaza, customers will be connected to SLT’s enterprise block storage, the largest cloud storage space in Sri Lanka. Backed by SLT’s reliable and robust network, customers are assured of high speed internet and VPN services that are simple yet value for money, and meets the scale, performance and security needs as well as mission critical needs of large and small business organisations alike.
SLT akaza comprises of an easy to use, self service and web based management interface, which gives customers control on creating and managing their own virtual data centre and virtual servers. akaza is hybrid cloud enabled, and has a reserved network performance up to 500 Mbps, a reserved storage performance up to 5,000 IOPs and also provides support for sharing disks between multiple virtual memories.
Dedicated firewalls and load balancers enhance security and distribute traffic among customers’ dedicated cloud servers. SLT also has a dedicated Cloud Expert team to provide expert support and assistance to customers around the clock, 365 days of the year.
PAAS, SAAS and DAAS platforms
In the near future, SLT will be enhancing their cloud computing service to offer a range of other services such as Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS), Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) and Desktop-As-A-Service (DAAS) platforms to customers.
PAAS provides a platform for local and global Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to develop software by leveraging on akaza’s IAAS, and accessing apps hosted in the cloud. PAAS allows customers to write applications in some of the most popular programming languages.
SAAS is an app market place with a pool of enterprise and mobile software applications (Apps) in a diverse range of categories including CRM, business intelligence, database, collaboration etc. from around the globe, which can be accessed from anywhere.
SAAS will also provide cloud contact centre and PBX services and cloud video conferencing services; a cloud contact centre and PBX is a cloud based contact centre and PBX solution for enterprise customers developed on a multi tenant platform, whereas cloud video conferencing will provide a more economical solution for carrying out multi party video conferencing which can be accessed through web or video end equipment.
DAAS provides Windows-based desktops which are hosted and managed through the cloud and can be accessed through any mobile devices including any smart phone or tablet as well as thin clients or even old existing desktop computers. It also enables business organisations to rapidly provision desktops to end-users anywhere on any device without compromising the overall computing experience. It also carries out effective management and support of desktop environments including security, data storage, backups and upgrades.
The distinctive feature of akaza when compared to the cloud computing services available in the country at present is the easy to use, self managed web-based portal that provides maximum flexibility to organisations, allowing them to select the exact amount of resources they require – be it storage, computing power, RAM, software, etc. as and when it is required. This also supports ‘Pay as you go’ and ‘Pay as you grow’ models.
