INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Teraco predicts more
growth across Africa
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as a result, most large international content
providers now colocate within Teraco’s data
centres, resulting in a much better user
experience and lower costs,” he said.
To further Africa’s development and
to continue to play a pivotal role in the
development of the continent, Teraco has
announced that it is currently in a proof of
content phase with select clients to further
enhance the Teraco Interconnection Platform.
This new functionality will enable clients to
virtually cross connect with one another and
their partners of choice via a single physical
cable, further lowering costs and allowing for
greater flexibility and control.
between more than 300 diverse African and
international peers.
“NAPAfrica’s peers cover the full spectrum of
the Internet including content, cloud, carriers
and networks, ISPs and CDNs, but also many
enterprises, who are rapidly realising the
benefits of peering,” said van Wyk.
Lex van Wyk,Teraco CEO
T
eraco, Africa’s only vendor neutral
colocation data centre now has over
12,000 interconnects, meaning that it
is very easy and efficient for its clients to do
business and exchange information.
Teraco CEO, Lex van Wyk, says that the
company is also home to Africa’s largest
peering exchange, NAPAfrica and is
playing a critical role in the development
of an interconnect hub. Located in Teraco’s
data centres in Cape Town, Durban and
Johannesburg, NAPAfrica facilitates the
exchange of around 300GBps of traffic
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In its 10 years of operation, van Wyk says
that Teraco has played a significant role to
bring the edge of the Internet – including
content, cloud and connectivity – closer to
not only the business sector, but the man
on the street. “The resulting interconnection
density within Teraco, alongside NAPAfrica’s
drive to bring global content to a local
distribution point, has resulted in lower
Internet access costs for South Africa and
many other sub-Saharan countries,” he said.
Van Wyk says that this is prevalent in the
reduction of general data costs.
“Not too long ago most content was
acquired from Europe via expensive data
connections, Teraco has changed this and
The Teraco Interconnection Platform is a
strategic collaboration of several Teraco-
developed technologies. Van Wyk says
that data centre interconnects will become
the integration point for digital businesses
and this platform will help speed up the
adoption of cloud services and aid in digital
transformation. The Teraco Interconnection
Platform includes:
• NAPAfrica (free peering/IXP)
• Cloud Exchange (all local and global
cloud providers on one Teraco platform
for fast and secure interconnection)
• Virtual Cross-Connects (software defined
interconnection via a secure platform,
secure, flexible and highly scalable use
of ports)
• Physical Cross-Connects (low cost physical
cable run for one client to another with
72 hours guaranteed via SLAs)
“This is the first of its kind in Africa and will
not only give Teraco’s clients the ability to
be more agile but will also support the rapid
growth of Africa’s internet traffic,” added
van Wyk. n
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