Airtel Africa announced a significant expansion of its service offerings in collaboration with Cisco. This partnership aims to support businesses in their digital transformation journey by providing Network-as-a-Service [NaaS] solutions across various platforms.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses face the challenge of accelerating their operations while managing network infrastructure. Airtel Africa recognizes this need and introduces NaaS solutions, including enhanced security, surveillance, connectivity, and cloud services, all accessible through a secure cloud platform.
NaaS represents a new way for organizations to consume network infrastructure, eliminating the need for physical ownership, construction, or maintenance. This innovative approach reduces traditional network model challenges, such as capital expenses, manual service provisioning, and lengthy issue resolution processes.
Airtel Africa’s NaaS solutions, powered by Cisco’s advanced Catalyst and Meraki cloud-based platforms, aim to transform connectivity for businesses of all sizes. These solutions replace hardware-centric VPNs, load balancers, firewall appliances, and MPLS connections, offering scalability, rapid deployment, and cost reduction.
Oliver Fortuin, CEO of Airtel Business Africa, emphasizes the importance of digital transition for businesses across Africa. He highlights the fusion of connectivity, mobility, security, and cloud into a comprehensive service offering, with the option for managed services to support infrastructure needs as businesses grow.
The NaaS offerings are available to all business customers, including small enterprises and global corporations with operations worldwide. Airtel Africa and Cisco are committed to facilitating a seamless digital transition for businesses, equipping them with the necessary tools to thrive in an increasingly connected world.
Vish Iyer, President of Service Provider, Asia Pacific, and Japan at Cisco, underscores the importance of simplifying technology for organizations. He emphasizes the partnership’s focus on reducing networking complexities and securely connecting the world through NaaS. This approach offers businesses a pathway to cloud adoption without significant overhead, fortified with robust security measures.