Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the premier ICT solutions provider launched the country’s National Cloud, “AKAZA”, raising the bar in cloud computing in Sri Lanka. “AKAZA” provides end-to-end cloud computing services enabling business organisations with enhanced agility, quick service delivery and cost efficiencies while providing maximum ROI as well as improved scalability.

AKAZA’s technology typically integrates all of its cloud services inclusive of IaaS, STaaS, PaaS, DaaS, SaaS and CaaS with the business management platform of corporate enterprises. Effectively, a gamut of services ranging from infrastructure to software can be accessed by way of a self-service catalogue online, centralizing user management. The need for manual intervention in the form of technical support for provision of services has become obsolete thereby empowering the user.

AKAZA cloud hosted locally in SLT's state-of the art Data Center can be used to store, access, and utilize data by remote means using the public Internet or secured IP/VPN. It is Sri Lanka's first fully automated cloud computing platform with a comprehensive self-service portal including features of pre-paid, post-paid options, service monitoring and alerts, single bill for all the services subscribed, automated service delivery, pay as you use & managed services etc.

Delivering his speech Hon. Harin Fernando, Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure said, “I congratulate SLT on launching the very first fully fledged end-to-end cloud platform in Sri Lanka. I am confident that SLT Akaza will redefine the ICT industry by making sure the ‘sky is the limit’. Having been in the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure for only two months, I’m extremely proud that I was able to give my fullest support to launch this ground-breaking cloud computing platform which will empower us all, including both private and public sectors. I truly believe that in the future, the country’s business landscape will be changed with Akaza cloud’s eco-system. With Akaza, users will be able to access their important locally hosted information, data & systems speedily than before from anywhere, anytime.”

Commenting further Minister said, “Most importantly, our own national cloud system which hosts data locally will address many of our burning issues like: minimizing foreign currency out flow to support the economy, reducing paper consumption drastically to protect the environment and making all our day to day operations eco-friendly. I would invite our business community to experience Akaza. SLT’s nationwide broadband deployment will be an important component for the success of cloud computing in Sri Lanka. Our ambition is to fuel the GoSL’s mandate for national economic progress envisioning the ‘Smart Sri Lanka’ and going global for more opportunities.”

Group Chief Executive Officer of SLT, Dileepa Wijesundera commenting on this AKAZA cloud launch said, “AKAZA Cloud solutions provide the next generation of computing facilities to match increasing globalisation and performance requirements of businesses. AKAZA Cloud solutions will definitely empower our valued enterprise clients to focus on strategic directives of their core business by minimizing their daily fire-fights on hardware, software, infrastructure & applications to help broaden their business horizons. Customers are able to exploit the new digital economy by exposing required software/services via the cloud to their end users and customers. Also our customers are empowered to expand their operations into new regions.”

Chief Enterprise and Wholesales Officer of SLT, Kiththi Perera said, “AKAZA Cloud offers end-to-end cloud computing services to further transform the way organisations operate IT with access to content, systems and processors locally hosted in SLT’s state-of-the-art data centres. AKAZA Cloud will guarantee the performance and security of applications and data to meet regulations which is critical in global business. Our customers are able to improve services and assurance on ROI, by combining the network and data into a bundle to achieve efficiencies and drive an end-to-end service and reduce operating costs.”

Cloud Service Program Manager and General Manager Enterprise Solutions, M.I. Deen mentioned, “In the present business climate, enterprises have to be agile and look into disruptive business models to stay ahead of the competition. The Enterprise IT plays a strategic role in the aforesaid digital disruption. AKAZA plays a pivotal role in this regard from the view point of IT Development/Testing and Operations. From Infrastructure As A Service, Platform As A Service and Software As A Service offerings, AKAZA enables enterprises to host their IT Applications in the AKAZA cloud while the enterprises focus on the core of their business. Moreover enterprises can leverage on the present relationships maintained in voice and data connectivity with SLT and craft a tailor made solution to meet the enterprise’s specific need. AKAZA is hosted in SLT’s state of the art data centre environment and backed by superior applications and systems support. We are confident of SLT’s ability to connect people, systems and applications securely and reliably to deliver great performance and user experience”.

Cloud Service Project Engineer and Engineer Enterprise Solutions, Buddhika Kondasinghe mentioned, “AKAZA cloud projects involved devised technologies with technology partners. We were able to blend all these ingredients and develop solid architecture and present them to the customers as a single solution. SLT cloud platform consists of a fully-fledged API layer and it facilitates us to connect diverse technologies. From top to bottom we involved the world’s most stable hardware including servers, load balancers and network devices to build the foundation of the platform.”

AKAZA Cloud Portal helps SLT to build a 100% fully automated orchestration system which can orchestrate hardware infrastructures to    3rd party multi or single tenanted software application vendors such as Plesk panel, ERP, HRM and E-learning solutions. While delivering an excellent customer journey, one of the key attractions in AKAZA is its comprehensive self-service portal, through which the customers can choose and subscribe for their interested product bundles. Further, the portal or the CPBM hosts product catalogs for each product category including infrastructure, software and storage. Once a customer is logged in to the portal he can view all his subscriptions, billing information and the health of the services though the dashboard. AKAZA is very flexible and scalable, enabling customers to scale their subscriptions as and when required and pay only for what they use.

Security- Today, customers are so concerned about their data security.  AKAZA establishes proper security layer and provides ability to integrate virtual firewalls for each customer and takes customers on safe cloud journey.

Connectivity- AKAZA is happy to announce that SLT can provide customers with private (MPLS) networks and public networks and build their own virtual private cloud inside AKAZA while getting the power of SLT’s island-wide fibre network and established fibre access networks with built-in redundancies and resiliencies.

Therefore, with all these technology combinations, SLT is ready to serve its customers with Sri Lanka’s most advanced cloud offering that exists today.

Why SLT Cloud – AKAZA?

AKAZA is a fully fledged cloud platform that enables diverse businesses ranging from top enterprises, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), micro level business organizations and government institutions as well as mobile customers to leverage on SLT’s vast ICT resources, which includes being connected to the largest fibre optic backbone infrastructure in the country. Customers who are adopting a cloud strategy in their IT projects benefit from the scalability and cost efficiencies of delivering IT services to their business requirements. For more information, log on to www.AKAZA.lk