Africa’s edge data centre leader, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), has deployed the continent’s first large-scale, open-access edge data centre environment, OADC Edge, in South Africa
The aim is to initiate a wider rollout of OADC Edge across Africa, with Nigeria expected to be the next country to benefit later this year.
The ability to locate equipment securely at remote locations is critical to 5G operators, ISPs and fibre providers looking to extend network reach into new markets. Latency improvements from serving content locally bring an enhanced end-user experience and are fundamental to the successful rollout of new, time-critical applications, whilst the ability to process large volumes of critical data before it is forwarded to larger, regional facilities, improves efficiency whilst also reducing backhaul costs.
OADC chief technical officer Bob Wright explained, “In recent years, Africa has seen massive investment in hyperscale data centres focused on the continent’s largest metropolitan areas. However, a presence in a single data centre is no longer sufficient to address a country or region.”
“5G operators, ISPs and fibre operators are seeking cost-efficient ways to extend network reach into new markets, requiring network equipment to be securely housed in remote locations.”
Wright continued, “At the same time, the growing desire to make content available and process ever-greater volumes of data closer to the customer is increasingly demanding implementation of a core-to-edge architecture, with meshed local and regional data centres fully connected into Africa’s network infrastructure across multiple countries and cities.”
Integral to OADC’s core-to-edge, open-access, edge data centre offering is the establishment of new, regional data centres covering major cities – initially across South Africa - and rollout of more than 100, 0.5MW OADC Edge data centres, in the largest deployment of open-access data centres on the continent.
The first 17 OADC Edge data centres are already live in South Africa offering colocation, rooftop access and high-speed network interconnectivity between facilities at up to 100Gbps and on multiple routes for diversity.
