INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange
offers direct connection to
leading global cloud services
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C
loud investment Africa has
increased sharply as the continent
sees the establishment of its
first cloud regions. Through extensive
investment by multiple international
operators, cloud strategies are now
becoming a key element within every
enterprise’s infrastructure investment.
Teraco, Africa’s largest and most
interconnected vendor neutral data centre,
says its African cloud exchange, located
in the Johannesburg and Cape Town data
centre facilities, will ensure a low risk, direct
entry point for clients wishing to connect to
local and global cloud providers.
Since launching, Teraco’s Africa Cloud
Exchange services the Sub Saharan Africa
region and has become instrumental in
keeping local traffic within the borders of
Africa, as opposed to routing it via Europe
and back again. Currently AWS Direct
Connect, Microsoft Express Route and
Google’s Cloud Platform are all available via
the cloud exchange.
Andrew Owens, Peering and Interconnection
Specialist, Teraco, says the Africa Cloud
Exchange is the neutral connectivity point
where any enterprise, ISP, carrier or managed
service provider can connect in Africa.
“This investment into Africa will
significantly impact the burgeoning cloud
region,” he said.
“Aside from benefiting from the myriad of
cloud connectivity options, there is also no
limitation on capacity. Teraco purely charges
a cross-connection fee and as a result,
reduces the costs to connect.”
Owens says that access to multiple
connectivity providers and business
partners is an inevitable requirement of any
modern enterprise.
“Most enterprises want to avoid the
public Internet due to potential latency
and throughput issues,” he said. “These
challenges are addressed by private
connect solutions. Through our cloud
exchange we ensure a low risk, secure,
direct, predictable connection to any client-
selected cloud provider.”
By utilising cross-connections, Teraco’s Africa
Cloud Exchange is a highly scalable, quick
and cost-effective way to create a hybrid or
multi-cloud IT environment.
“It creates an ideal opportunity to move
business critical workloads and latency-
sensitive applications to the public cloud,”
said Owens.
“Through this approach, less network hops,
higher carrier diversity and interconnectivity
are automatically a part of a resilient and
scalable network.”
In addition, Owens says that cloud
operators can take advantage of direct
access to African terrestrial fibre, satellite
connectivity, submarine cables and an open
market for interconnection.
Using the Africa Cloud Exchange, Owens
says Teraco recently ran real world latency
tests from the Teraco cross-connection
directly to resources deployed in Western
Europe and resources deployed in South
Africa via Microsoft Express Route.
The RTT (Round Trip Time) to resources
deployed in the cloud from Teraco’s Africa
Cloud Exchange has improved from an
average of 171ms down to less than 2ms.
“Lower latency and direct cloud connections
are imperative for a cloud approach to
thrive,” said Owens.
“Being able to assist clients within the
enterprise to better serve their clients,
providing not only interconnects, but also
lower latency.” n
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