JUNIPER NETWORKS TO SOLVE NIGERIA'S ICT SECURITY PROBLEMS

LOSS of valuable information and data experienced by corporate organisations in Nigeria mainly arising from security threats of their networks may soon come to an end as Juniper Networks, a service solution provider of Google, face book and American online (AOL) has begun business in Nigeria.

At a one-week seminar organised in collaboration with Layer3 and Juniper Networks recently with the theme 'Discover the New Network by Juniper' was used as a forum to introduce the innovative and revolutionary features of Juniper Network's infrastructure solutions that are changing the way data centres and computer networks are currently being built globally. It also showcased how organisations could increase network performance while simultaneously getting better economies.

Juniper's Partner Account Manager for Africa, David Naude, stated that the legacy multi-tier network currently run by most businesses was too slow, too complex and expensive to implement. 'By using innovation to rethink the network architecture, Juniper has been able to fundamentally transform the network value proposition for its customers.'

Chief Executive Officer of Layer3, a certified partner of Juniper networks for the West African market including Nigeria, Oyaje Idoko disclosed, ' IT is changing and its a most dynamic technology in the world, and recent entrance of submarine cables providers into Nigeria, networks are becoming more and more interwoven. So security has become a serious concern and juniper currently is the number one provider of security solutions in the world, and has maintained the number one position for seven consecutive year in security.'

According to him: 'Juniper recently came up with a concept with a new network and through this, they are completely revolutionised in the way IT network are run and through our partnership, we want to bring the concept of this new network to the Nigerian populace especially corporate organisations who are trying to revamp or upgrade their network. This seminar will stand as an opportunity for organisations to get to know and understand the concept of the network so that they can apply to their own scenario.'

He continued: 'Juniper networks is one of the most advanced original equipment manufacturers in the world. Some of the networks of the biggest organisations run on juniper like Google, Face book, AOL, because of the confidant that has been developed over the years in junipers solutions. Obviously, we don't want organisations in Nigeria to be left out of this opportunity and in terms of our ability to support the product, before we attained our elite partnership status, we have had to go through a rigorous training and certification process whereby our engineers had to go through training and certification examination programmes that are globally acceptable certification exams and we currently have the largest pool of Junipers certified engineers in West Africa.'

He expressed optimism that with the current trend where corporate organistaions in Nigeria were showing more concern about the security of their infrastructure, it would provide an avenue for Juniper solutions to key into the gap.

'Outside security, other network infrastructure juniper has to offer also complements the solutions. We see banks, oil and gas companies, telecom and other corporate organisations adopting Juniper because the current solution offered by other service providers are not as rugged and reliable as Juniper solutions,' Idoko said.