INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Teraco launches
Riverfields
Hyperscale Data
Centre Facility
Riverfields is the fourth facility built
by Teraco
I
t’s taken hyperscale computing a
decade to steadily claim significant
cloud infrastructure service market
share. Initially focused on major
international markets, Africa has not
been a priority until recently, when large
players started turning their attention
to Africa. Since then, the continent has
seen top operators, content creators
and cloud providers committing to
significant infrastructure investment.
In doing this, these service providers
are finally offering local businesses an
opportunity to retain data locally. In
just under two years, African companies
have started to fast-track the adoption
of cloud and as a result are aggressively
pursuing opportunities to migrate.
Evidence of this investment is visible
as Teraco, Africa’s largest neutral data
centre, launched its Riverfields Hyperscale
Centre east of Johannesburg. Featuring
over 24MW of power and 6000m² of
technical deployment space, Riverfields
is the largest commercial data centre
operator in Africa.
Lex van Wyk, CEO, Teraco says the
company designs and builds according
to demand: “Hyperscale computing
has grown enormously, as has demand
for colocation facilities. These trends
combined are shaping the way forward
for Africa and we anticipate significant
uptake as more service providers
pinpoint Africa as a growth market.”
Teraco completed its Joburg West
build in Isando earlier this year and is
www.intelligentcio.com
opening its Riverfields Hyperscale Data
Centre Facility in response to growing
demand for these facilities in sub-
Saharan Africa: “The demand is driven
by big data and cloud computing, as
well as enterprise organisations that
consume these services locally. Many of
which have not been available locally or
are only in limited functionality due to
restrictions presented by high latencies
due to distance.”
Internationally, researchers predict
that the global colocation market
will grow to more than US$50 billion
by 2020, a CAGR of over 12% from
2015 to 2020. A significant portion
of this demand is being driven by the
enterprise, IT and telecommunications
sectors. The hyperscale data centre
market was estimated at over USD 1.00
billion in mid-2015, with significant
growth forecast based on storage
resource demands in distributed or grid
computing environments.
Teraco has witnessed this growth first-
hand across its data centre businesses
as well as the uptake within NAPAfrica,
the largest Internet Exchange Point
(IXP) in Africa, which is located within
Teraco’s data centre facilities.
power provision to 50MW with over
18,000m 2 of white space. All of which
is required to meet the increasing
demand for hyperscale computing,”
explains van Wyk. He says that Teraco
is excited about the evolution of
this technology, but remains fully
committed to building Africa’s neutral
colocation infrastructure and helping to
shape the African market. n
“The demand
is driven by big
data and cloud
computing, as
well as enterprise
organisations that
consume these
services locally.”
Van Wyk says hyperscale computing
is another in a long line of technology
trends that will profoundly shape
enterprise computing: “We will see new
sectors emerge and a consolidation of
IT resources that will lead to a small,
but powerful group of players, bringing
what the industry now knows to be
hyperscale computing.”
Riverfields is the fourth facility built by
Teraco with locations in Cape Town,
Durban and Johannesburg: “The
Riverfields facility in Bredell brings our
Lex van Wyk, CEO, Teraco
INTELLIGENTCIO
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