Angola to invest $89 million to build a national cloud

Africa Press | Angola is set to invest US$89 million to build Angola’s National Cloud infrastructure, train technicians and specialists, and store and unify government services. The project will be led by the National Institute for Information Promotion (INOFSI), an institution under the Ministry of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Media. It involves constructing two data centers that will be connected with a 50 Gbps fiber optic ring, as well as a 10 Gbps link to interconnect various ministerial departments.

The data centers, will be built in an area of ​​5,320 square meters (57,260 square feet), in the Camama district, Luanda, and the modernization of the Data Center Backup, installed in the National Data Center, next to the Telecommunications Institute (ITEL), in the Rangel district, Luanda.

As a result of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in December 2021 between the multinational Presight and the Executive of Angola, the project will allow for a unified government cloud that will be built on the Data Centers that will provide more than 80 services.

This project provides for the migration of existing “apps” and the implementation of new ones to the unified government “Cloud”.

The main Data Center will house 204 server cabinets, with its execution and equipping estimated in 15 months, with two months having already been accounted for.

This project heralds the emergence of wireless offices for the ministries of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (MITTCS), Education, and the National Assembly.

According to the director of INOFSI, André Pedro, the availability of the national Cloud will be stratified into three levels, namely the level of sovereign bodies, State administration, and the information society.

When the project is completed – in the first quarter of 2024 – all data center silos of the ministerial departments will be transferred to this platform, which will allow savings for the State, in the order of 60 percent.

In addition to reducing costs, overlapping investments in terms of building data centers will also be reduced, according to Pedro.

“What we want to do with the construction of this infrastructure is to reduce the number of queues in obtaining electronic services from the Government of Angola, eliminate the limitations that have existed in obtaining services in the registration of public tenders, for example. We want to reduce it as much as possible, removing almost complete dependence on an Internet signal to provide electronic public service. What is assumed is to create this private network of the State, interconnect ministerial departments to the ‘data center’ of the Government, and by this way have this private network completely separated from the Internet service.”

The project aims to promote the digital development of the national economy, bring citizens closer to government action, promote the use of IT and cloud services, and lay the foundations for the digital transformation of the industrial sector.