industry news
NEW REPORT REVEALS AFRICA AT THE
EARLY STAGES OF SIGNIFICANTLY SIZED
DATA CENTRE MARKET OPPORTUNITY
A new report from
BroadGroup,
ahead of its
‘Invest in Data
Center Africa
Summit’ on
8th June,
suggests
that although
Africa has been
originally cast as a mobile story,
there are signs that the transition
to digitalising economies is
encouraging the development of
carrier neutral facilities, but warns
that the journey will be challenging
given the relatively low base from which
demand in most countries is starting.
The new report, Data Center Africa, covers 16 country markets
and research has identified 74 players with 91 data centres.
The report reviews these country markets to see trends, key
players, where they are now and how they are doing in the move
to resolve supply issues such as reliable power infrastructure,
alternative telecoms infrastructure, a national market for IP Peering,
international bandwidth connectivity and an evolving a carrier neutral
data center infrastructure.
Not everything is bad news. Some African countries actually
have a power surplus and are exporting power. There is also growing
investment in submarine cables to help with bringing in and distributing
power. Even poor supply situations have their upside as enterprise
users are forced to choose between investing in their own back up
power generating capacity or migration to a more cost effective third
party data centre provider. It remains to be seen whether this will
contribute sufficient impetus in demand for local third party hosting
and content services in some African countries.
‘Change has been slow but there are signs that growth
is quickening,’ commented Philip Low, managing director of
BroadGroup. ‘A host of factors ranging from connectivity to physical
environment to policy can act as barriers to growth, but this new
report looks beyond these issues and reveals new data centre
operators are discovering innovative solutions to provide services for
their customers.’
10
IN BRIEF
The Green Grid vice president,
Lance Rütimann, will provide
ICTFootprint.eu strategic
guidance and feedback on
sustainable ICT mechanisms to
help organisations understand
and improve energy efficiency
in their technology estates.
Funded by the European
Commission’s Horizon 2020
program, ICTFootprint.eu has
constructed a 36 month work
plan for businesses from ICT
sector, containing practical
information related to energy
efficiency and carbon footprint
methodologies and indicators,
advisory bodies for green
procurement, and one-on-one
help desk services.
Romonet and its Big
Data Predictive Analytics
Platform has won the
‘Critical Environment Future
Thinking’ Award at the
DatacenterDynamics US &
Canada Awards 2016. The
‘Critical Environment Future
Thinking’ award recognises
Romonet’s Analytics Platform’s
ability to solve the financial
and operational challenges
that affect enterprises, data
centre service providers,
facility operators and those
responsible for managing
the highly sensitive IT
environments businesses are
dependent on.
Keysource has won a RoSPA
Occupational Health and
Safety Award for the third
year in a row. The company
received a Gold Award after
being applauded for its high
health and safety standards
during the past 12 months.
Schneider Electric has won the
Data Centre Power Product of
the Year category at the DCS
Awards 2016. The company’s
portfolio of prefabricated and
micro data centre solutions
allows the rapid and cost
effective deployment of
infrastructure in any location,
unhindered by challenges of
distance, space constraints or
remote environments.
The European Investment
Bank (EIB) has agreed a
€7.5m financing deal with
Flexenclosure. The EIB loan
will support the expansion of
Flexenclosure’s R&D activities,
enabling it to maintain and
extend its position in its key
markets of sub-Saharan Africa,
Latin America and Central and
South East Asia.
Epsilon has been selected by
Daisy Worldwide to deliver
its Epsilon Intelligent Network
eXchange (eINX) solution.
Daisy Worldwide will use
eINX to interconnect with its
customers and partners in its
local regions while ensuring
network performance on a
global scale.
BlueJeans Network has
partnered with Equinix and
joined the Equinix Cloud
Exchange to quickly expand its
global reach and provide high
performance connectivity to its
cloud based video offerings.
Equinix’s vast and vendor
neutral network of 1,150+
networks and carriers gives
BlueJeans enhanced flexibility
and choice, with increased
safety, speed and reliability.