INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
NAPAfrica reaches top 15 of
the world’s largest IXPs
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In 2010, Teraco approached
the Internet Service Provider’s
Association (ISPA) to suggest
moving the Johannesburg
Internet Exchange (JINX) and
establish the Cape Town Internet
Exchange (CINX) at Teraco’s
facilities, which was the only
neutral data centre available
at the time. The proposal was
rejected, which led to Lex van Wyk
and Owens building an exchange.
This was the start of a great
Internet adventure and a steep
learning curve for Teraco.
T
eraco, Africa’s only vendor neutral
data centre, has announced that
Africa’s largest Internet Exchange
Point (IXP), NAPAfrica is now ranked in
the top 15 of the largest global IXPs. This
ranking position is in terms of the number
of unique ASNs or peering members across
the IXP.
Andrew Owens, Technical Manager,
Interconnection and Peering, Teraco, says
NAPAfrica has 323 members and has truly
established itself as the interconnection
and content hub for sub-Saharan Africa,
connecting to over 350 unique ASN’s
servicing 16 countries. Owens says that the
success of an IXP should be measured by
its ability to sustainably contribute to the
development of the Internet ecosystem
within its community.
“Several NAPAfrica members claim that as
much as 80% of their traffic is peered at the
exchange,” he said. “This significantly lowers
transport costs across the southern continent
and enables clients to offer a better service
at far more competitive prices.”
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The first significant milestone was
reached when Google joined the
IXP and started peering its content in 2012.
“Later that same year more content
providers joined, most notably Akamai and
Optinet, and the exchange soared to a new
high of 1Gbps of traffic,” added Owens.
“Members soon realised the very real value
of picking up content locally.
“He says that the exchange has also become
more attractive as content players watch the
number of users and traffic increase.”
By 2016, NAPAfrica exceeded peak daily
throughput of 100Gbps. Telkom Openserve
announced its decision to peer and the
NAPAfrica community was firmly on the
map as the largest in Africa. Early 2017 saw
NAPAfrica upgrading its infrastructure to a
new Arista platform. Owens says this was
driven by client demand as they continued
to enjoy the growth in Internet traffic across
the continent.
“100Gbps ports are the new standard and
we are upgrading existing clients on a daily
basis,” he said.
Owens added that the first client to upgrade to
a 100Gbps port was Afrihost and the demand
has continued. “The NAPAfrica platform
has the hardware, capability and traffic to
support this level of investment into Internet
infrastructure,” he said. “Prices have also
dropped significantly, down to around 25%
of the levels last seen in late 2016, making this
an affordable option when upgrading.”
As Southern Africa continues to grow and
prove itself to be the African continent’s
largest colocation market, larger than the
next 20 African markets combined according
to Xalam Analytics, the role of an IXP such as
NAPAfrica becomes more critical.
“Developing Africa’s Internet ecosystem
is a primary role of an IXP together with
infrastructure providers such as Teraco,”
said Owens.
“In the eight years since the start of
NAPAfrica, sub-Saharan Africa has benefited
from local and international content from
leading providers such as Akamai, Cloudflare,
Facebook, Google, Netflix, Microsoft,
Amazon, Verizon Digital Media, Limelight
and Optinet.”
Because most of the major network
operators in Southern Africa peer at
NAPAfrica, large amounts of content reach
the man on the street. This combination
of network and content operators working
together, assists in making the end user
Internet work.
Achieving a position in the top 15 globally,
Owens said: “NAPAfrica will continue to
upgrade its infrastructure. The volume of
Internet traffic is steadily increasing with
Johannesburg reaching 400Gbps and Cape
Town is almost at 100Gbps. We are ready to
meet further demand and growth.” n
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