INTELLIGENT BRANDS // CLOUD
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // DATA CENTRES
Cloud offers African businesses a
fast-track to modern IT infrastructure
CommScope forms multi-tenant
data centre alliance
One of the major challenges was
the fact that most of the world’s
large, multinational cloud computing
providers do not yet have data
centres in Africa. Many businesses
were concerned that they would not
get the speed and responsiveness
they required if they were to access
these cloud services across the public
infrastructure, Marston says.
A dedicated, high-quality connection
to the major international cloud
services hosted in Europe or other
parts of the world ensures a smoother,
faster experience for the end-user,
delivering reliability and performance
that compares well to locally hosted
applications and data.
Robert Marston, G
lobal Head of Product at SEACOM
A
frican businesses can fast-track
the digital transformation
of their organisations by
tapping into affordable, dedicated
Ethernet links between their own IT
environments and the world’s leading
providers of cloud computing services.
This offers a high-performance, secure
alternative to accessing cloud services
across the public Internet.
That’s according to Robert Marston,
lobal Head of Product at SEACOM,
G
who says that African organisations
can today benefit from fast, direct
connectivity to cloud data centres
operated by the likes of Google,
Microsoft, Amazon and IBM. The
benefits of dedicated Ethernet links to
these cloud service providers (CSPs)
include more reliability, faster speeds,
lower latencies and higher security than
typical public Internet connections.
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Says Marston: “By using cloud
computing for solutions such as
Infrastructure as a Service and
Software as a Service, it promises
African organisations massive cost-
savings over operating and maintaining
their own data centres and on-site IT
infrastructure. It also enables them to
ramp computing capacity up and down
in response to changing business needs
and gives them the flexibility they need
to innovate and grow with little risk.”
“The cloud is an opportunity for many
African enterprises to leapfrog legacy
systems or manual processes to the
latest technology – it’s a perfect fit for
a continent where many companies
lack modern IT infrastructure and
the skills to effectively manage it. Yet
many companies have had concerns
about the performance of the cloud in
the past.”
SEACOM owns and operates Africa’s
most advanced and largest IP/MPLS
fibre backbone, interconnecting Africa
with rest of the world. The company
has recently been expanding metro
networks in major business centres to
connect business customers directly
onto its high-speed international fibre
backbone, offering quality connectivity
and guaranteed network latencies.
SEACOM is leveraging its abundant
and scalable capacity on its undersea
cable system and continent-wide
IP-MPLS network, as well as the
capabilities of its cloud services, to
enable organisations to smoothly
transition to the cloud. In addition to
offering fibre Internet access, SEACOM
also offers powerful cloud solutions.
For example, it can enable companies
to take advantage of cloud offerings
like hosted mail, online backup, end-
point protection and virtual hosting.
Because SEACOM controls the
infrastructure from the last kilometre
of the fibre to points of presence in
the world’s largest Internet traffic
exchange points, it can ensure clients
use international cloud services as if
they were extensions of their own
IT infrastructure. ¡
www.intelligentcio.com
T
he world’s increasing
consumption of data, combined
with the trend of businesses and
service providers outsourcing their data
centre facilities rather than owning
and managing them, has resulted in
significant growth in multi-tenant data
centres (MTDCs).
Vice President, Global Partners,
CommScope. “By leasing third-party
data centre white space, enterprises
can remain focused on their core
businesses while enjoying optimal
data centre availability, reliability and
cost control.”
To address this shift in the data centre
market, CommScope has formed the
Multi-Tenant Data Center (MTDC)
Alliance as part of the PartnerPRO™
Network. MTDC Alliance members
will be able to offer optimal network
infrastructure solutions for customers
who need to deploy this technology in
multi-tenant environments. Demand will continue for MTDCs from
hyperscale data centre operators,
service providers, cloud providers
and enterprises; however, with the
increased competition, it is becoming
harder to differentiate on build quality
alone. That is why CommScope, a
leader in communications network
infrastructure solutions, formed the
MTDC Alliance, assuring customers
who work with their certified partners
in the PartnerPRO Network that quality
enterprise solutions, like the industry
leading SYSTIMAX®, NETCONNECT®
and Uniprise® solutions, are being
deployed in MTDCs.
“Over the years, a shift has
taken place in which companies
increasingly outsource IT needs to
shared environments in which data
centres are viewed as an operating
expense,” said Stephen Kowal, Senior “With our global network of 179
data centres across 44 markets,
Equinix is thrilled to be part of the
CommScope MTDC Alliance to offer
enterprise customers the optimal
data centre deployments that best
In fact, one analyst firm has predicted
that total operational square
footage of global MTDCs can reach
approximately 177 million by the end
of 2018.
www.intelligentcio.com
fits their needs,” said Greg Adgate,
Vice President of Global Technology
Partners and Alliances at Equinix.
“Our facilities offer the broadest
geographic reach, the largest choice
in cloud and network providers and
the most efficient interconnection
options for companies looking to lease
data centre space. We look forward to
working with CommScope and their
customers as part of this initiative.”
MTDC infrastructure makes advanced
technologies such as cloud computing
and virtualised data centres available
to companies of all shapes and sizes;
from small- and mid-sized business to
large enterprises, while also allowing
flexible and easy expandability as the
business grows. By outsourcing data
centre services instead of building,
hosting, maintaining and upgrading
them, MTDC tenants can realise
significant operating and capital
expenditures saving.
Today, the PartnerPRO Network has
active partners in 88 countries and
serves as a resource with thousands of
distributors, installers, integrators and
consultants worldwide. ¡
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