MainOne’s Data Center subsidiary (http://www.mainone.net), MDX-i, yesterday announced the launch of its new cloud-based service offering with Microsoft.

The solution which is built on Microsoft Azure’s enterprise grade infrastructure provides flexible, highly available and fully secure private computing environments to companies on a Pay-as-you-Go basis. By combining expertise in proven, yet familiar technologies and geographic specialisation, MDX-i Cloud Services deliver a solution tailored to meet the needs of enterprise customers in West Africa.

Benefits of the Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) solution include access to a wide range of computing resources, such as storage, CPU, memory, security firewalls and network bandwidth, provisioned on a subscription basis.

With this launch, MDX-i is positioned to meet the computing infrastructure needs of companies deploying private, public or hybrid clouds from its Tier III Data Center in Lagos. This ensures quick and agile provisioning of infrastructure for businesses and government agencies as required, thus improving their time to deliver on-demand applications and services.

Speaking at the press conference, MDX-i’s Business Development Executive, Rob Lever said the new cloud platform is a scalable and cost effective alternative to dedicated computing resources deployed in-house by companies and includes managed virtual data centers, virtual private servers, and virtual LANs to assure customers of high availability.

“Businesses are beginning to embrace Cloud services because it promises increased agility in addition to savings in OPEX and CAPEX. Our IaaS platform reduces complexity, interoperability, and security concerns of our customers. It provides them the benefit of leveraging our infrastructure, and the expertise of MDX-i and Microsoft, without their having to incur the substantial costs associated with deploying such solutions.”

Speaking at the launch, Kabelo Makwane, Microsoft Nigeria’s Managing Director noted that “The Cloud OS Network is a worldwide group of select service providers that partner closely with Microsoft to offer customers hybrid cloud and Azure-enabled solutions. Uniquely combining expertise in Microsoft technology, customer requirements, and geographic specialisation, Cloud OS network members deliver the Microsoft Cloud Platform customised to your specific needs.”

In his comments, Christian Landmark, the CEO of PCL Mobisafe, the pilot customer of the new Cloud offering, expressed his confidence in the performance levels and reliability of the solution, “We chose MainOne as our Cloud Provider because of their excellent reputation for quality and support in the telecoms sector. We are impressed by their technical expertise and willingness to go the extra mile in their provision of what is a fairly complex solution.”

In alignment with global trends, MDX-i will over time offer a full set of integrated IT solutions, starting with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and BaaS (Backup as a Service), among others.

•Photo shows, L-R: Kabelo Makwane, Managing Director, Microsoft Nigeria; Funke Opeke, CEO, MainOne; Rob Lever, Business Development Executive, MDX-i Data Center & Cloud Services and Oluwawemimo Adeniyi, Small Medium and Business Partners’ Director, Microsoft Nigeria, at the MainOne/Microsoft Cloud Press Conference . . . yesterday in Lagos.