Leading independent data, voice and Internet Protocol service provider Liquid Telecom has expanded its data centre facilities in Johannesburg and Cape Town in a bid to support rising demand for cloud-based services in Southern Africa.
The telecom giant’s newly expanded carrier-grade facilities are part of the Africa Data Centre project specifically designed to build more capacity for hosting data and deliver other daily consumable technologies like Microsoft 365 through cloud services.
On the 30th of January last week, Liquid Telecom announced that it has launched its state of the art Southern Africa Data Centre (SADC) facilities rooted right in South Africa’s major cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The carrier-neutral SADC facilities will provide leading cloud service providers, carriers and enterprises with additional rack space and collocation services to meet the rising demand for cloud-based services in Southern Africa.
The Africa Data Centres now have doubled the size of its existing South Africa-based facilities, which are built to Tier III standards and were acquired as part of Liquid Telecom’s ZAR 6.55 billion deal for Neotel in February 2017.
From left to right: Liquid Telecom Group CTIO Ben Roberts, South African Minister for Telecommunications and Postal Services, Honorable Dr Siyabonga Cyprian Cwele, and Liquid Telecom Zimbabwe Managing Director and Group Executive Southern Africa, Wellington Makamure
After completing the first phase of expansion, Liquid’s SADC in Johannesburg now offers over 3000 square metres of secured space for data servers served through a total power capacity of 7MW, while SADC facility in Cape Town provides 1800 square metres of secured rack space with 5.5MW of power.
Further stages of expansion are planned for SADC Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town as Africa Data Centres aim to increase space at the facilities by five-fold over the next five years.
The newly expanded SADC facilities were officially opened by the South African Minister for Telecommunications and Postal Services, Honourable Dr Siyabonga Cyprian Cwele, at an exclusive launch event at SADC Johannesburg.
Speaking at the same launch, Liquid Telecom’s Group CEO, Nic Rudnick said “As moving to cloud-based solutions becomes more commonplace, businesses across Africa require more carrier-neutral, open-access data centre space for their business-critical data and applications,”
“Through continuous investment in Africa Data Centres, we are providing the foundations for leading enterprises and cloud providers to come and build their digital future in Africa.” – added Rudnick.
SADC Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town are already home to nearly 100 customers, including global, regional and local telecoms operators, ISPs, cloud service providers and large enterprises.
Liquid Telecom Zimbabwe Managing Director and Group Executive Southern Africa – Wellington Makamure said: “This is a proud moment for Liquid Telecom that will help us better meet the needs of our carrier, enterprise and retail customers in Southern Africa, and continue on our journey to build Africa’s digital future,”
Connected by the fibre routes of many major carriers, the facilities also host internet exchanges independently operated by INX-ZA. Through a partnership with INX-ZA, the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX) has been expanded to SADC Johannesburg, while the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) has been extended to SADC Cape Town, enabling connected members in any site to peer quickly and cost effectively with members in other data centres.
SADC Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town, along with partner locations East Africa Data Centre (EADC), Nairobi, and Central Africa Data Centre (CADC) are Africa’s largest and most diverse set of carrier grade, highly interconnected purpose-built data centre facilities.
They are interconnected by multiple networks including Liquid Telecom’s award-winning fibre network, which provides regional and international reach for customers. This allows businesses hosting data and cloud in Africa to have control and flexibility of where to host and back-up their data with geographic diversity.
Additional Information:
- Africa Data Centres is also currently expanding its award-winning East Africa Data Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, which houses 2,000 square metres of secured space for data servers over four floors. EADC is currently the only data centre in East Africa to hold a Tier III certification from the prestigious Uptime Institute.
- SADC Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town are ISO 27001 certified, complying with high international information security management standards. The data centre facilities are also both PCI DSS compliant; the global information security standard set by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to help control and minimise points of risk to fraud or compromise of sensitive information.
- Customers at Africa Data Centres can also access Liquid Telecom’s CloudConnect for Microsoft ExpressRoute service, which enables businesses to create private connections between Azure data centres and infrastructure on-premises or in a colocation environment. In the first half of 2018, Liquid Telecom will be able to offer direct private connections to the South African Azure data centres – marking the first time that businesses in Africa will be able to access Azure on their own continent.
