One of the most significant benefits of an active peering community is cost-effective, efficient distribution of content and the demand for business services like cloud and entertainment just continues to increase explains Jan Hnizdo and Michele McCann at Teraco.
Content providers and enterprises looking to expand into Africa can accelerate their plans by partnering with the right infrastructure providers as businesses commit to moving more of their functions to the cloud. The continued surge in data traffic is thanks to an African Internet community that has embraced the value of peering, the increasing use of data-intensive applications, enterprises continuing to move into the cloud, and the ever-increasing demand for video, content, and gaming delivery services. These trends have driven greater traffic levels between cloud and service providers, enterprises, and end users.
One of the most significant benefits of an active peering community, or IXP is the cost-effective, efficient distribution of content to the consumer, and the demand for business services like cloud and entertainment just continues to increase. An overview of datacentre and peering investments and operations in the South African market.
Durban
Teraco announced the completion of the expansion project at its DB1 facility, the largest datacentre in KwaZulu-Natal. Teraco is a Digital Realty Company, and Africa’s largest interconnection hub and vendor-neutral datacentre provider.
As South Africa’s third largest city with a population of over three million people, home to thriving digitally connected enterprises and a key South African manufacturing hub, Durban is experiencing demand for additional datacentre capacity and thus a logical destination for Teraco’s continued investment into datacentre infrastructure on the African continent.
Situated on Durban’s north coast, Teraco DB1 is a strategic interconnection hub on the African subsea cable map with direct access to the Seacom, EASSy, MÉTISS, and soon-to-be-deployed 2Africa cable systems that connect the east coast of Africa.
Teraco’s DB1 facility is connected to the Teraco campus in Isando, Johannesburg, through a wide choice of carriers via diverse regional fibre routes enabling clients to increase the number of partners they connect with and expand their reach into new markets.
The newly expanded facility supports the growing demand by enterprises and cloud service providers for datacentre capacity. DB1 offers highly resilient and secure colocation facilities in line with Teraco’s long-term vision of enabling digital transformation across Africa.
The expansion has doubled DB1’s capacity to 2.2 megawatts, MW of critical power load. The facility now comprises 5,800 square metres of building structure accommodating over 700 racks. The DB1 facility provides enterprises with direct access to Platform Teraco, a rich ecosystem of over 250 network providers, global cloud on-ramps, subsea cable systems, access to over 100 managed service providers, and direct peering at NAPAfrica, Africa’s largest Internet exchange point.
DB1 is the latest expansion for Teraco’s growing datacentre platform. It takes critical power load capacity at Teraco facilities to 186MW, which includes the Isando Campus JB1, JB3, JB5, 70MW, Bredell Campus JB2, JB4, 64MW, Cape Town Campus CT1, CT2, 50MW, and Durban, 2MW.
Cape Town
Teraco also announced a 30 megawatt expansion of its CT2 hyperscale datacentre facility in Brackenfell, Cape Town, South Africa. The expansion is scheduled for completion in early 2025 and will incorporate the latest environmentally sustainable cooling and water management designs.
The facility expansion caters for the increasing demand by enterprise customers and hyperscale cloud providers for datacentre capacity. The CT2 facility offers highly resilient and secure colocation facilities in line with Teraco’s long-term vision of enabling digital transformation across Africa.
Jan Hnizdo, CEO at Teraco, said the new CT2 facility represents a strategic addition to Platform Teraco. It offers enterprises a scalable platform for IT infrastructure deployment while providing performance, reliability, stringent security, and the widest choice of carriers and network service providers – a crucial component in building a robust interconnection strategy.
“We continue to invest significantly in the region’s ICT infrastructure and have built out Africa’s largest datacentre platform. We take pride in enabling open access interconnection and providing world-class datacentre infrastructure for our clients,” he said.
CT2 Phase 2 construction has commenced with the new capacity scheduled to be available in the first quarter of 2025. CT2 Phase 2 will comprise four data halls of 5.3 megawatts, MW, two data halls of 3.1MW, and a further two data halls of 2.2MW. Set to be built over three levels upon completion, the entire CT2 facility will support a total IT load of 50MW.
As part of Teraco’s broader Cape Town Campus, CT2 is connected to CT1 with diverse fibre routes and provides enterprises with direct access to Platform Teraco, a rich ecosystem of over 250 network providers, global cloud on-ramps, subsea cable systems, access to over 50 managed service providers, and direct peering at NAPAfrica, Africa’s largest Internet exchange point.
Clients deployed in either of these facilities can connect directly to AWS Direct Connect and Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute via Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange.
As one of Africa’s most digitally connected cities, Cape Town is a logical destination for Teraco’s continued investment into datacentre infrastructure on the continent. Cape Town is home to thriving digitally connected enterprises, including telecoms, financial services, e-commerce, logistics, and retail.
The city benefits from its enviable location at the southern tip of Africa and is the confluence point for major subsea cable systems such as Equiano, ACE, WACS and SAT-3, SAFE. The abundance of subsea cables landing in Cape Town continues to gain momentum, with the 2AFRICA cable system landing expected soon.
CT2 has been designed to put sustainability first and minimise its environmental footprint. Incorporating state-of-the-art cooling designs with a closed-loop chilled water system that offers 100% free air cooling. This design introduces industry PUEs, minimising energy consumption and reducing to zero water used in the ongoing cooling process.
CT2 is the latest expansion to Teraco’s growing datacentre platform. It increases the critical power load capacity at Teraco facilities to 185MW, which includes the Isando Campus JB1, JB3, JB5, 70MW, Bredell Campus JB2, JB4, 64MW, Cape Town Campus CT1, CT2, 50MW, and Durban, 1MW.
NAPAfrica
NAPAfrica, Africa’s Internet exchange point and the sixth largest exchange globally announced a significant milestone in its growth journey. It surpassed 4Tbps, Terabits per second traffic milestone, confirming its position as the pivotal exchange for Internet traffic across the African continent.
NAPAfrica reached the 3Tbps traffic threshold in March 2023, representing a 33% growth in traffic volumes in under a year. This rapid traffic growth mirrors the increasing demand by users for content and cloud services. NAPAfrica also welcomed social media platform TikTok to its growing community.
“The presence of over 250 carriers and networks is the drawcard for content providers like TikTok to join the exchange,” said Michele McCann, Head of Platforms at Teraco.
The continued investment into critical telecommunications infrastructure in Africa has contributed enormously to the growth of NAPAfrica, as has the continent’s demand for content and cloud services like Microsoft Azure and AWS.
Increased network demand to service remote users has driven the adoption of key cloud and security applications. These include Akamai, Amazon, Cloudflare, Microsoft, and Zscaler.
Datacentre snapshot
Teraco DB1
- DB1 comprises 5,800 square metres of building structure serviced by 4 megavolt-amperes, MVA of utility power supply and provides 2.2MW of critical power load.
- Strategically located in Durban on the east coast of South Africa with 3,000 interconnects.
- DB1 expansion significantly adds to South and sub-Saharan Africa’s datacentre infrastructure.
- DB1 will augment the existing portfolio of ISO9001, ISO27001, ISO50001, ISO14001, PCI-DSS and ISAE3402-certified datacentre facilities.
Teraco CT2
- On completion, CT2 will comprise 73,000 square metres of building structure serviced by 90 megavolt-amperes, MVA of utility power supply.
- Strategically located as part of the Cape Town Campus and connected to CT1 with over 6,500 interconnects.
- The expansion will add eight data halls, taking the total facility to 16 halls with 18,000 square metres of deployment space.
- CT2 expansion significantly adds to South and sub-Saharan Africa’s datacentre infrastructure.
- The datacentre expansion is being built in line with global hyperscale requirements.
- It will augment the existing portfolio of ISO9001, ISO27001, ISO50001, ISO14001, PCI-DSS and ISAE3402-certified datacentre facilities.
- CT2 will feature environmentally conscious designs and monitoring technology to reduce water use and improve energy efficiency.
