t cht lk
and business demand for high-velocity, high-
availability services, a more localised IT and
data infrastructure is essential.
Modern data centres in Africa will not only
help meet these needs, but also serve as
hubs to connect the region to the wider
global data economy; facilitating economic
and social development.
Despite the dramatic rise in both terrestrial
and mobile connectivity over the past 10
years, broader Digital Transformation in
Africa has been largely stymied by a lack of
adequate data centre infrastructure.
Existing infrastructure is not equipped to
cater to ever-growing server space, power
and cooling requirements. By building
a modern, state-of-the-art data centre
infrastructure, Africa can benefit not only
from improved digital services, but also
significant socioeconomic growth.
“
BUILDING DATA
CENTRES THAT CAN COPE WITH
THESE RISING REQUIREMENTS IS
CRITICAL TO DRIVING THIS DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION.
retail and government. According to the
Internet Society, the Internet contributes
to 3.7% of developed countries’ GDP on
average. In African countries, however, this
lies at just 1.1%. bringing a number of highly skilled, well-paid
jobs to the region.
Building and utilising local data centres
is vital to boosting this figure and driving
economic growth. For instance, the Internet
Society identifies a lack of local content
infrastructure and content delivery networks
(CDN) as a key barrier to achieving wider
Internet use. Hosting content in local data
centres significantly reduces the latency
and cost of content delivery, which will
ultimately improve its accessibility for local
communities. Capitalising on opportunities
such as these is vital as the mobile CDN
market is set to become a major driver of
data traffic growth in Africa, with CDN traffic
predicted to exceed 70% of total online
traffic in the next five years. As the popularity of new technologies such
as IoT and cloud continue to grow amongst
African consumer and business markets,
data centre operators are racing to satisfy
these new demands.
A growing colocation data centre market will
also facilitate job creation and cultivate local
partners, such as cloud service and other
third-party service providers who will be
able to deliver higher quality, more reliable
services to their customers from within
modern data centres.
For instance, new data centres in South
Africa alone are predicted to create over
100,000 jobs.
Robert Mullins, Executive Director of First
Brick Holdings
The role of data centres in economic
and social growth
The economic value of the Internet in Africa
is unsurprisingly strong, with research from
McKinsey claiming that the Internet can
increase productivity in the continent for a
multitude of sectors, including education,
healthcare, financial services, agriculture,
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INTELLIGENTCIO
As demand for data centres rises, data centre
operators will inevitably require more staff
and create more IT training programmes;
a particularly promising prospect when
considering Africa’s youthful population will
directly cause GDP to grow by 11% to 15%
over the next decade, by which time they will
have entered working age.
Additionally, with the advent of Edge
Computing and hybrid cloud, there will
be demand for specialised IT skills, in turn
Choosing the right data centre for
your business
While data centre modernisation can
facilitate greater IT agility and lower costs,
building a data centre is no easy feat.
Businesses should look to cost-effective and
flexible alternatives, for instance housing
hardware in colocation facilities, or renting
from a cloud hosting provider. Outsourcing
will allow businesses to not only get their
services up and running faster but will also
require less upfront investment.
There are various factors that local African
businesses should consider when choosing to
build or purchase space in a data centre.
Selecting a local colocation data centre
facility or provider that is close to key
customer markets ensures that they will
benefit from low latency connectivity, in
turn helping to create a consistent regional
service that meets market demand and
satisfies customer needs.
Additionally, choosing a data centre that is
close to a business hub facilitates ease of
access; allowing business owners to visit their
IT environment, supervise staff and keep a
close eye on their operations.
Power and network accessibility is another
critical aspect when selecting a data centre,
and will serve as the foundation of a reliable
operating environment. While the location
of a data centre will rely upon factors such as
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