Open Access Data Centres (OADC) has announced deployment of the continent’s first large-scale, open-access edge data centre environment, OADC Edge, in South Africa. This is the first step in a wider rollout of OADC Edge across Africa, with Nigeria expected to be the next country to benefit later this year.
By consolidating edge computing, edge data centres and hyperscale connectivity within a single ecosystem, OADC is establishing an edge environment that expedites the realisation of business opportunities for its clients. The ability to locate equipment securely at remote locations is critical to 5G operators, ISPs and fibre providers looking to extend network reach into new markets. Latency improvements from serving content locally bring an enhanced end-user experience and are fundamental to the successful rollout of new, time-critical applications, whilst the ability to process large volumes of critical data before it is forwarded to larger, regional facilities, improves efficiency whilst also reducing backhaul costs.
OADC Chief Technical Officer Bob Wright explains: “In recent years, Africa has seen massive investment in hyperscale data centres focused on the continent’s largest metropolitan areas. However, a presence in a single data centre is no longer sufficient to address a country or region. 5G operators, ISPs and fibre operators are seeking cost-efficient ways to extend network reach into new markets, requiring network equipment to be securely housed in remote locations.
Bob continues: “At the same time, the growing desire to make content available and process ever-greater volumes of data closer to the customer is increasingly demanding implementation of a core-to-edge architecture, with meshed local and regional data centres fully connected into Africa’s network infrastructure across multiple countries and cities. OADC is building Africa’s edge data centre infrastructure to support clients seeking cost-effective network extensions, and those who are changing their infrastructure deployment strategies to fulfil demand for content closer to the network edge for improved availability and premium performance or to optimise networking and storage costs by pre-processing data locally.”
Integral to OADC’s core-to-edge, open-access, edge data centre offering is the establishment of new, regional data centres covering major cities (initially across South Africa) and rollout of over 100, 0.5 MW OADC edge data centres, in the largest deployment of open-access data centres on the continent.
