[kictanet] Open Data - Where does it sit?- its just the beginning.

[Michuki Mwangi]

Walu,

On 7/13/11 8:44 AM, Walubengo J wrote:
> But on a more serious note, an  operational data center requires more
> than one agency to deliver. You need reliable power  (KP&L), you need
> reliable water supply (City Council?), you need reliable security (read
> vandalism/cable cuts), you need laws (Data-Protection Act to begin with)
> and yes -  even if you had all the above, you will still need reliable
> Political stability before anyone can trust you enough to let you host
> their data locally.
>

The concept of DC and and more specifically "Carrier Neutral" Data
Centers is soley driven by the economics of it. Therefore having Data
Centers is not subject to political stability or existence of data laws,
etc. I will elaborate.

IMHO an Carrier Neutral Data Center Owner is a Commercial building
Landlord. The owner provides a building, Power + cooling and security.
90% of all buildings in the city and its surrounding have managed to do
so successfully. .

The only difference betweeen a commercial building and a carrier neutral
DC is that instead of office partitionings and fittings they install
equipment racks and cables (overhead or under). They dont buy switches
or routers or servers. Period.

The KDNs, Jamii, AccessKenya, WOL, Safaricom, KPLC, et al, just build
their fiber to the building and terminate in a Meet-me-Room.

When a customer walks in, he chooses the floor (based on availability)
picks their preferred carrier, power grid provider (cant wait for that
day), lockable cabinet or shared, etc.

They pay for the space on the way out and pay their carrier based on the
service agreement monthly. The owner of the Datacenter has no idea what
one pays for connectivity.

For the above reasons, when a client like the GOK puts up a tender for
cloud services. Carrier X or Data Center Y dont often bid.

Bidders for such tenders are often customers of Carrier X and Data
Center Y. Thus GoK will often sign agreements with the winners of the
tender for cloud services i.e Company Z.

However, its for Company Z to maintain a relationship with Carrier X and
Data Center Y for quality of service. They will inturn (Carrier X and DC
Y) have agreements with other service providers to ensure they maintain
their SLA with Company Z. (the scenario may differ where Company Z is a
one stop shop)

Therefore the binding agreement between Client GOK and Company Z is the
deal breaker. What does Company Z offer in terms of data protection,
security, redundancy, etc. IMHO the law only offers a safeguard that
should company Z fail on their contractual agreement there is a legal
process that supports my case.

Its in the business interest for company Z that they deliver on their
obligations, failure to which amounts to business loss.

> am afraid in Kenya we do score slightly below average on all the above -
> for now even though slowly improving. And so we should not complain too
> much for having found our government data sitting somewhere in the US.
>

Under what laws are our government data sitting on at the moment?.

Regards,

Michuki.