The upcoming African data centre boom

Why build Data Centres in Africa when the rest of the World is better geared for them with power and connectivity and they continue to be built at a rapid pace in these advanced markets?    On the face of it – it makes more sense to continue hosting data and services in North Carolina or in Finland if you are an Africa corporate with data hosting and storage requirements.

However things are changing in Africa.  “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi ”  to quote Pliny the Elder – There’s always something new coming out of Africa.   What now?   Well there have been a few drivers.  Firstly there is now connectivity between Africa and the rest of the World.    Numerous submarine cables provide an instantaneous connection between the various landing points and the World Wide Web (in other words the Internet.)  Secondly there is a large effort to install fiber optic capacity within and between numerous African countries driven largely by carriers like Liquid Telecom and mobile operators like MTN.  Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, there is a new development at the political level where Governments and Regulators have told those entities which deal in data – banks, health care providers and Government departments – that they need to ensure their primary data is stored locally.   The intrusion by the NSA and related agencies into databases hosted in the US or Europe has given African Governments pause.  The realization that their data is not secure has driven this new legislation which by the way is also being implemented in other jurisdictions like Germany Germanys data laws  and Russia.   (Russian data laws)

What this means is that the current capacity of African data centres is well below that which the enforcement of these new laws will require.    Hence we envisage a new data centre building boom in Africa starting now.    The most likely model will be a carrier neutral data centre which will allow for all comers to host their data (as opposed to proprietary DC’s for banks and large corporates own requirements).  They will be modular allowing for expansion and optimizing capital investment. 

In addition we have seen that the demand from prospective customers is for Cloud services (as opposed to collocation).  This is mainly Platform as a Service both dedicated ie Bare Metal Servers or shared (leveraged) along the lines of AWS.   So the trend is not only to migrate out of ones own data centre but then to move away from any infrastructure investment.   Customers don’t even want to own their own servers and collocate – they want virtual servers which they can then use on a pay as you go basis.  True utility computing.

The manifold benefits include:  
  • protection from technological redundancy;  
  • no capital expenditure ( freeing up the balance sheet);  
  • heightened security (Cloud DC’s are much easier to secure than in –house DC’s); 
  • reduced headcount (much fewer IT staff) and 
  • easier compliance.   
Build them and they will come?   

The customers are there already!!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End of Passwords

Finally it seems … the penny has dropped.   Passwords are a poor substitute for real online security.   There is more and more ‘chatter’ about it.    Robin Henry writing in the Sunday Times on New Years Day talks of the end of ‘password hell’ invoking solutions in the pipeline from the Web Gods – Apple and Google.  The talk is of new biometric solutions such as facial and hand movement recognition.  Even IBM is talking this way.  ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/thestreet/2011/12/20/ibms-tech-predictions-for-the-next-5-years/ )  I agree with the notion that passwords are a dying breed but not that biometrics will become vogue.   They are fraught with problems of their own such as reliability, accuracy and the need for referencing of data-bases ( fail !) .    Why are passwords defunct?   Basically they are difficult to remember and they are easy to steal.    The solutions needed are those that require no cognitive load for the user ( the most unreliable participant in this enterprise
Read more

WIKILEAKS - the fuss?

Why all the fuss ? Why the ‘outrage’ at this ‘threat to national security’ ?   Are we really worried that nuclear war is going to break out because of these ‘dirty’ secrets getting out.  As if the North Koreans are going to up the ante any more than their mock charge of last week because of the abuse and scorn heaped upon them by US Diplomats.  ? !    Come on. To me the irony of this bluster is that it is (largely) from the right wing establishment in the US - calling it treason!     Any party that parades a half wit like Palin as a presidential hopeful hardly holds any moral high ground when it comes to protecting the USA.   Her appointment as the ‘leader of the free World’ will be enough to send any level headed American ( let alone any one of their Allies ) into a panicky tailspin at the thought of what she may stumble into ( by accident or design) . So how did these documents get out there?   Poor security.  Plain and simple.   If the US is so worried about this incident su
Read more

CAPITALISM – no longer fit for purpose ?

Image
The vast majority of humanity survive on a few dollars a day.    The economic boom of the last fifty years has benefited a relatively small elite. The fossil fuel driven economy has devastated the planet. Capitalism is the most efficient creator of wealth but it has been derailed and it has led to inequality and environmental degradation on a global scale. Global warming and capitalism’s favourite progeny – globalisation – has triggered social movements,   political discontent and massive migration.    There are more economic and political migrants seeking greener pastures than at any time in history. Increased Government participation in the economy both directly and through regulation is required to temper the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism. Degrowth means uncoupling the link between growth and prosperity.        Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ has been the single biggest driver of the phenomenal economic growth enjoyed globally over the last two hundred years
Read more