I’ve spent a lot of time engaged with companies that depend on data to move, in order for them to make money.
Regardless of if you are a Telecoms Provider (Like 9Mobile, Airtel, Glo or MTN) , a Datacentre (Like 21CTL, MDXi, Rackcentre), or a Tower Company (like ATC, IHS or Pan African Towers), or maybe an ISP (Internet Service Provider), one of the critical things is to keep service working 24/365.
A Network Operation Centre (NOC) is the central administrative point of networks. Professionals commonly speak of ‘Uptime’ – when the network is up and functional, ‘Downtime’ or ‘Outages’ , when it’s not, and ‘Availability’, a percentage of that 24/365 when the network is available to be used.
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In the early days of ICT in Nigeria, companies data on the move was mostly e-mails, document attachments, and database content requests.
Having 90% ‘availability’ was a big deal. People really didn’t have a focus on quality.
For corporate (non mass market) services, providers offered availability as an SLA (Service Level Agreement) with penalty clauses for delivery failure which transparently acknowledged service downtime and reflected the penalty as a credit against monthly invoices.
As demands became more stringent and more complicated, even 99% availability struggled to be impressive. 99% availability can be met as an SLA, but still means around 4 days a year downtime. This downtime can have different impacts for different companies or individuals whether it is the result of one long outage in a year, or several smaller ones happening more frequently.
Generally though, the SLA will be applied across a billing period rather than annually, though if outages hurt customers, even if a credit is applicable, it is usually no consolation.
If the outage comes as a block, imagine what would happen if you were depending on those few days as an online research period to study for some critical examination, or to dig for business intelligence for a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity with a great company?
However, if it came as lots of small outages – slices of time that would normally be overlooked by a human user… As AI, robotics and automation are increasingly becoming prevalent in manufacturing, machinery already exists that requires live data connection with a remote machinery manufacturers server.
This updates ‘firmware’ – small computer routines that tell the AI in the machine how to behave. If the connection is broken, even for a millisecond, this can be a big problem. While generally, high tech equipment has a firmware update recovery provision, sometimes a number of things can conspire together to result in catastrophic failure – THE PERFECT STORM!
The whole production line is stopped once one ‘station’ in the line has its machinery transformed to a white elephant. Hundreds of thousands of production dollars are lost, and with some high precision machinery, they have to wait on a crisis recovery team to arrive from overseas.
Those used to seeing their PC or laptop will be familiar with the screen – ‘Updating… DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER’. This is the multi-million dollar equivalent of the same scenario.
And on we move to Tekedia Institute.
In my experience of Tekedia Institute since inception, there has never been a lack of access to the core programs and their supporting content and resources.
On two or three occasions, in the whole time its been operating, there has been a problem with the Zoom services, and Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe has rescheduled the events with profuse apologies.
The Zoom discussions tend to be a regular feature in the Mini MBA product.
Otherwise, all the other components of the Mini MBA along with the other products in the stable, have stayed up 100%.
Post COVID we have had to look at more flexible ways of working being the norm. This sort of flexibility has to also see increased adoption in learning.
As ASUU continues with their own ‘PERFECT STORM’ , I am giving Tekedia Institute a rating of 99.98% Availability and 100% Uptime.
The Bricks and Mortar Universities in Nigeria need to take a more tech orientated performance approach to ‘Uptime’ ‘Outages’ and ‘Availability’ and look to appreciate the Tekedia Institute model.
If they do not, they may find themselves joining the demise of NITEL before the decade is out.
Or as Ndubuisi simply puts it – No strikes in this school – Welcome!