Nkosana Mbokane's story proves it doesn't matter where you start: it is about where you finish.
From the dusty streets of Katlehong, Johannesburg, a young boy determined to succeed made his way into the world of IT engineering and the complexities of server rooms.
Mbokane tells how in the 1970s, punch card operators were freezing in computer rooms. This sparked a thought in his mind: why can't servers function at normal room temperatures?
During his early days in the data centre environment, more than 15 years ago, Mbokane spent an entire weekend moving a data centre from one building to another. He had to ensure that by the Monday morning everything was up and running without a glitch. From that day he vowed to see how data centre technology and efficiencies could improve.
Mbokane is clearly passionate about the subject of data centres and knows the industry well: so his transition from chief technology officer at Technochange Solutions to CEO last year was an obvious one.
All about technology
"The biggest driver of many businesses today is technology," says Mbokane, who enrolled at the Tswane University of Technology to study IT 22 years ago. "The data centre and storage is a foundation for having great IT technology and systems. If this is mastered then IT becomes a great partner to the business and provides great value."
He notes a survey was conducted by the Uptime Institute 2015 recently which discovered 84% of data centre issues revolve around problems with managing power, space, cooling capacity, assets within the data centre and uptime. These can all negatively impact business operations.
His interest in data centres is about ensuring any business with a data centre continues to operate seamlessly, becomes more profitable and improves service delivery.
Keeping at the top
We asked Mbokane how he stays at the cutting-edge in a field that is evolving quickly and taking flight into the cloud. He says: "You have to prioritise continuous improvement, research and innovation in your business, as well as benchmarking your skills and technology against the best."
By doing this, you will ensure you follow the trends and keep up to date with new technology and how it is constantly changing, he asserts.
Cloud has been taking the industry by storm and this is just the beginning. Mbokane's predictions for the next five to 10 years are that the cloud will drive software-defined data centre innovation, and broader migration to browser-based cloud and software-as-a-service applications will occur.
This will continue to increase business agility, aligning workflows with mobile devices and fast forwarding the downfall of the desktop PC. As a result of the competitiveness of the industry, he expects the cloud vendor wars to result in a significant decrease in the price of storage.
Mbokane has written a few strategic management and data centre management books with an African context, which he dreams of publishing one day.
He is also passionate about making the world a better place, and helping the disadvantaged reach their dreams.
He has learnt he needed to develop leaders that he could trust to do things his way or even better. He believes some mistakes were good for him because he learnt better ways of doing things.
He has been inspired by other leaders along the way, among them Leon Gerber, former head of Data Centres and Systems Management at Standard Bank and Len de Villiers, Group CIO of Telkom.
Nkosana Mbokane will present at the ITWeb Data Centre Summit 2016: From Legacy to Next Generation, on Wednesday 20 July, at The Forum Bryanston, on the role of the software-defined world and how it impacts business automation.
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