When data matters

A new business avenue has opened up for the local IT sector. Through the data storage and IT security solution services, our information technology companies can cater to both local and huge global markets. With the sophistication and corporate culture taking root in the business world, data preservation of individual firms, along with the industry is of immense importance to a thriving business and economy. Without having adequate data on a particular business area and preserving own data on a secured storage system, doing business in the competitive world is now an absurd proposition. As our technology use and tech professionals are growing day by day, tapping the data storage business could be a new potential business avenue for our tech-savvy industry. It is soothing to know that with the growing internet user base and the adoption of massive digitisation by banks, financial institutions, and large corporate houses, the data center business is forging ahead at an exponential rate in Bangladesh in recent times.

A report published in this daily on Sunday state that the demand for data storage and IT security solutions has increased mostly after the outbreak of pandemic as local business firms are shifting their attention to adopting technology-based services. Data centre service providers say their clients include banking and securities, financial institutions, pharmaceuticals, research organisations, communications, media and entertainment, healthcare providers, manufacturing industry, insurances, retail and wholesale trade, transportation, energy bodies, and various other business entities. The nationwide digitisation with 123.82 million internet subscribers is a kind of forcing the business entities to embrace tech-based services alongside creating the need for storage and management of data on cloud servers. At least 15 privately owned data centres that run collocation services alongside data storage facilities are providing data storage and IT supports for their clients.

On the global stage, multiple IT services including collocation service, Cloud service, VPS service, e-mail service, hardware installation, and maintenance, managed power distribution, backup power systems, data backup and archiving, managed load balancing, controlled internet access, managed E-mail and messaging, managed user authentication and authorisation, diverse firewalls, and anti-malware programmes, managed outsourcing, managed business continuance, and efficient technical support have huge demand. Global Cloud revenue will reach around $474 billion in 2022, up from $ 408 billion in 2021, forecast a US-based market research firm Gartner Inc. By 2025, half of cloud data centres will deploy advanced robots with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities, resulting in 30 per cent higher operating efficiency, according to Gartner, Inc. The market will hit $ 1.95 trillion by 2032.

In the given situation of promising global outlook, the government set up a Tier-IV National Data Centre on a 7-acre land in Kaliakair, which is the world’s 7th largest data centre with 99.995 uptime. Alongside ensuring the security of the country's data, the Tier-IV Data Centre is now saving Tk 353 core annually as Bangladeshi firms don't need to preserve their data in foreign lands, according to officials of Bangladesh Data Centre Company Limited (BDCCL).

Local data centre companies are embracing off-premises cloud computing services, as they say, cloud data centre minimizes costs to a great degree and is flexible to data use from any internet connection anywhere while MertoSky, Brilliant Cloud, DhakaColo, ColoCity, PacECloud are giving cloud services to their customers. With the spreading of the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ slogan at the grassroots levels and subsequent initiatives from the government, the country has started getting the outcome of the slogan. To reap the benefit further, Bangladesh needs a pool of experienced IT professionals to tap the local and foreign opportunities. Investment in data management and cloud services holds immense business opportunities for Bangladeshi entrepreneurs.

The government has been providing meaningful IT infrastructure facilities across the country. It is time for the business community to grab the opportunity.