INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Teraco to invest R1bn with
expansion of JB1 campus
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Jan Hnizdo, Chief
Financial Officer at
Teraco
availability to the major cloud onramps such
as Amazon Web Services Direct Connect
and Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, Teraco
has seen a growing uptake driven by the
enterprise market.
“The Teraco platform allows enterprises to
have direct private connections to all the
leading cloud providers in the most latency
efficient and resilient manner possible,”
added Hnizdo.
I
n its largest infrastructure build project
to date, Africa’s only neutral data centre
provider has announced that it will be
expanding the Teraco Isando Campus.
Increased demand for additional data
centre capacity is being driven by cloud
uptake and enterprise organisations
wanting to access the Teraco platform. The
expansion will occur in two phases. Phase
one, currently underway, will grow the
facility by 2,000 cabinets bringing the total
JB1 Campus capacity to 5,700. Total usable
floor space will increase by 4,000 square
meters, expanding to a total of 12,000
square meters across the data centre
campus. The anticipated ready for service
date is in Q3 2019.
A total of 60MW of power will be
reticulated to the site addressing
requirements for further expansion after
phase one has been completed. The total
power available to the Isando Campus
will now reach 80MW. Jan Hnizdo, Chief
Financial Officer at Teraco, says that
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“Enterprises can deploy their public, private
and hybrid cloud strategies from the
Teraco platform, which allows for complete
freedom of choice from a cloud provider
perspective, as well as significantly reducing
the time and cost for enterprises to access
these cloud platforms.”
he sees continued demand for Teraco’s
services given the unique business model
and secular growth trends as the African
continent continues to digitally transform.
The Teraco Campus expansion follows
on from the recently launched Riverfields
hyperscale data centre facility in Bredell.
Hnizdo says that funding for the build is via
a combination of internally generated funds
and enlarging existing debt facilities from
R1.2bn to R1.8bn.
“Our debt funding partners, Absa, continue
to be highly supportive of our business
model and are key partners in Teraco’s
growth strategy,” he said.
Teraco’s offering to clients of resilient data
centre facilities allows for a choice of over
200 telco’s providing connectivity to Africa
and the lowest latency interconnection
points to cloud and content.
Hnizdo says that with the recent
announcements of direct interconnection
Over the past decade, Teraco has focused
on growing its ecosystems of telco, content,
financial services, enterprise and service
providers. Its offering is underpinned
by providing clients with direct access
to Africa’s largest Internet exchange,
NAPAfrica, which includes all the benefits of
interconnection via the Teraco platform.
Hnizdo says that Teraco is committed to
growing its capacity footprint across its core
hubs, thereby ensuring that clients have
certainty and the flexibility of expansion to
take part in the digital transformation that is
happening across sub-Saharan Africa.
“Teraco continues to invest significantly into
the region’s ICT infrastructure and has built,
what is now, Africa’s largest data centre,”
he said.
“We take pride in our vendor neutral offering,
with open access to interconnection
and world class resilient data centre
infrastructure for all our clients.” n
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