On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 12:21, Eugene Lidede (Synergy)
<eugene@synergy.co.ke> wrote:
Running with Mich's argument on the "economics of it"...
Do we really need (or MUST we have) a DC comparable to Amazon or Rackspace
grades for hosting to be done locally - and in this specific case,
opendata.go.ke?
How does KRA manage (or is it survive)? Even with all their downtime issues,
they still run a competent DC, at least in my view, and this has brought
enormous efficiencies countrywide. Most of all, each downtime, brings a new
set of practical knowledge to the folks there on how NOT to do it. What of
Equity bank with their over 6 million clients? How do they do it?
Am informed Orange has over 2000 sites hosted on 3 servers physical servers.
Safaricom: probably more sites on less equipment.
I beg to be educated on what is a Data Center, meanwhile here are my two
cowrie shells: To host opendata.go.ke locally we require approximately 3
servers and bandwidth and some real estate for the rack (am told Kukubo has
an entire rack of sun servers sitting idle - anafanyia nini?). If KRA does
it, and Equity bank does it among a host of others, yet they are not
industry players but consumers, really for ICT board this should be a no
brainer!
To claim that we require "political stability" to host our data locally is a
comical joke. For crying out loud: there are 40 million Kenyans physically
"hosted" in Kenya day in day out, with all its potholes and blackouts, kwani
hii data iko na nini?
Really let's stop busy-bodying and making all sorts of excuses. Capacity is
not an issue. Period!
Regards
Eugene Lidede | Chief Technology Officer | Synergy Systems Limited
6th Floor, Phoenix House, Kenyatta Ave. | Cell: +254 721 289497/476367 |
Tel: +254 20 2113163
live.mystocks.co.ke | www.propertykenya.com | www.mystocks.co.ke
Outstanding Online Investment Content Provider 2009 - Computer Society of
+1 to Eugene.
Now that we are all hyped about "Open Data", it would be nice for the PS to convince KRA to show us where and how they store our data. Central Bank should perhaps follow suit.
Before we lose focus of this Open Data debate, much has been said about it, but besides the political mileage of Kenya being the first in Africa to blah..blah (even though our economy is perhaps the worst), I still believe an important aspect is being swept aside:
Eugene has argued that KRA has our data stored in Kenya. Equity Bank has their data stored in Kenya.
Now I must ask: Are there plans to bring this data hosted in the US back and host it in Kenya in the future (say, when GDC becomes active) or we are tied to the technology behind the visualization - that the data will be hosted out there as long as there is no Soctrata platform in Kenya?
