Data centres could become an important business in Bangladesh in the upcoming years as people are generating huge volume of information every day, said experts.
Masud Parvaj, chief executive officer of DCiCON Ltd, a local IT firm specialised in data centre consultancy, management and design, said data centre technology would take a shape in Bangladesh in 2020.
“Data centre has already become an important part for financial institutions as they need to secure customers' information and transaction details,” he said.
Shahjahan Mahmood, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, said the volume of data being produced is increasing as the country is moving towards greater digitisation.
“Now, the masses use technology even at union level. So, data centre technologies have become a vital instrument to secure large volume of data. For this, we should focus on developing local expertise.”
They made the observations at the inauguration of the 2nd Data Centre Technology Summit at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka yesterday.
DCiCON Ltd and the Data Centre Professionals Society of Bangladesh organised the two-day event being participated by 30 companies from nine countries.
Organisers say the summit aims to present Bangladesh as a data centre hub in the region and enhance the skills of local professionals through knowledge sharing.
Amazon, US-based cloud computing company, demonstrated its cloud service, Amazon Web Services, at the event.
The cloud service enables users to host their data on it with hundred percent redundancy, according to the organisers.
Imran Ahmed, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the posts, telecommunication and information technology ministry, said the government is developing a four-tier national data centre to manage information about the country's 16 crore citizens.
He said local data centre professionals have to prove their worth to compete with global engineers in data centre technologies. Universities should prepare their curriculum accordingly.
Ahmed also said the government is ready to formulate a data protection act. But local data centres should maintain international standards as per the Uptime Institute.
Washington-based Uptime Institute is the IT industry's most trusted and adopted global standard for design, build and operation of data centres. Ahmed also said computer graduates produced by universities are not skilled enough to manage data centres.
A number of speakers urged universities to introduce data centre technology in their academic curriculum at undergraduate level to produce skilled professionals.
They also underscored the importance of capacity building of existing professionals who are working at different firms to secure the data of the masses.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/data-centres-hold-greater-business-prospects-1462306