INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Cloud is also helping Africans build
job skills, with 775,000 trained on
subjects ranging from digital literacy to
software development. We anticipate
the Microsoft Cloud from Africa will
fuel extensive new opportunities for
our 17,000 regional partners and
customers alike.
“This development broadens the
options available to us in our
modernisation journey of Government
ICT infrastructure and services.
It allows us to take advantage
of new opportunities to develop
innovative government solutions at
manageable costs, as well as drive
overall improvements in operations
management, while improving
transparency and accountability,” says
Dr Setumo Mohapi, CEO at SITA.
The Microsoft Trusted Cloud
Microsoft has deep expertise
protecting data, championing privacy
and empowering customers around the
globe to meet extensive security and
privacy requirements. With Microsoft’s
Trusted Cloud principles of security,
privacy, compliance, transparency
and the broadest set of compliance
certifications and attestations in
the industry, Microsoft’s cloud
infrastructure supports over a billion
customers and 20 million businesses
around the globe.
“By establishing hyperscale cloud
data centre capacity in South Africa,
Microsoft is addressing customers’
concerns and demonstrating
commitment to the delivery of cloud
services within the country and the
region as a whole,” says Jon Tullett,
Senior Research Manager, IDC MEA.
“The presence of local facilities will be
greatly encouraging to South African
customers, particularly those
in regulated industries such as
financial services and the public
sector where data sovereignty concerns
are paramount. This is a strongly
positive development for the cloud
industry in Africa and particularly
Microsoft’s ecosystem of partners, ISVs
and customers.”
52
INTELLIGENTCIO
Virtustream and BCX
partner to revolutionise the
cloud market in South Africa
The need for speed
CommScope’s new high-speed migration platform
prepares data centre managers for decades of
increased bandwidth.
Virtustream, the enterprise-class cloud company and a Dell Technologies
business, has announced its first customer and partner in Africa. BCX, Africa’s
premier end-to-end digital solutions partner providing advanced information
and communications technology, will implement Virtustream® xStream® and
Virtustream Viewtrust™ software to further orchestrate, automate and secure
BCX’s cloud capabilities.
Virtustream xStream is an integrated cloud management platform that enables
service providers such as BCX to deliver enterprise-class, IT-as-a-Service to
their customers. BCX’s cloud capabilities are strengthened by the addition of
Virtustream Viewtrust enterprise risk management and continuous compliance
monitoring solution.
“We are pleased to support BCX’s extension of their cloud solutions into mission-
critical applications to serve the market needs across South Africa,” said Steve
Midgely, Vice President, Virtustream. “Our relationship with BCX is further evidence
that Virtustream’s platform is the preferred solution for enterprise cloud services
delivering mission-critical applications for customers throughout the world.”
BCX, a fully owned Telkom Group subsidiary, serves Johannesburg Stock Exchange
(JSE) listed enterprises, public sector organisations, state-owned entities and
medium-sized businesses in Africa, Dubai and the UK. Virtustream’s cloud
capabilities will be deployed in two BCX Tier IV data centres, one in Johannesburg
and the other in Cape Town, for the coverage BCX requires to meet their growing
business needs supported by Telkom Group’s reliable Metro Ethernet connectivity.
“Enterprise cloud is a high priority for businesses in South Africa and we undertook
a rigorous selection process to find the right solution to offer business-critical
workloads in the cloud for our customers and enhance our existing cloud
capabilities,” said Jacques Loubser, Chief of Infrastructure Solutions, BCX Group.
“In the end, Virtustream was a good fit for us, because we already manage many
major private company and government workloads. These organisations deeply
value the agility and performance of the Virtustream cloud solution. The additional
benefits accrued from Virtustream Viewtrust for security and compliance make the
new service a compelling and unique offering within South Africa.”
Virtustream cloud solutions are expected to go into service within the BCX data
centres in July 2017.
www.intelligentcio.com
John Schmidt, Vice President of Global Data Centre Solutions at CommScope
A
s the world embarks on a fourth
Industrial Revolution, it is the
30-50 billion connected devices
that will spur the unprecedented
growth in bandwidth. The next few
years are critical to building the
networks that will meet the demand. In
anticipation of this need, CommScope,
a leader in communications network
infrastructure solutions, is introducing
its high-speed migration platform that
assists data centre managers with
building faster, more agile, high-density
migration plans.
As part of CommScope’s entire high-
speed migration strategy, solutions
include all fibre types (multimode and
www.intelligentcio.com
single mode) as well as intelligence and
customised connectors.
Ehab Kanary, Head of Enterprise,
Commscope, MEA, says this platform
will be available to all levels of data
centre: “The new platform will be
applicable to all delivery models,
including hyperscales, colocation
and large enterprise data centres.
As a portfolio consisting of modular
fibre and connectivity building blocks,
network development tools and
optional infrastructure intelligence,
the platform will help these data
centres create an agile, manageable
and fibre-dense infrastructure that can
support higher-speed applications and
technologies as they evolve.”
CommScope’s high-speed migration
portfolio works for duplex and parallel
applications and allows customers
to decide on the best approach to
architecture. It also supports higher
speeds and emerging applications
without having to rip and replace.
More than that, the platform allows
CommScope to act as a trusted
partner with a highly trained team of
network architects who understand
a customer’s business needs and
provides insight to future data centre
ecosystems and technology trends.
The following innovative solutions
INTELLIGENTCIO
53