The growth of third-party and hyperscale data centres is driven by the escalating demands of workloads, from enterprises deploying hybrid cloud strategies, cloud computing, streaming video, online gaming, financial technologies and, more recently, AI.

In 2022, monthly global consumer IP traffic surpassed 350 exabytes (roughly the amount of data that crossed the internet in 2012). This volume of data is expected to grow at a 30% CAGR for the foreseeable future. All this information will move over fixed networks between data centres, and from data centres to devices and back.

As the content access hub for sub-Saharan Africa, Teraco enables network connections to 23 African countries, including subsea cable systems, dark fibre providers, national long-distance providers and metro providers. All subsea cables along the southern coast of Africa are available to clients from Teraco facilities in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. These cables include ACE, EASSY, Equiano, METISS, SACS, SAT3/SAFE, SEACOM, WACS and 2Africa, which will go live in 2024.

Teraco provides carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data centres and has more than 25 000 cross-connects, making it Africa’s most interconnected data hub. This includes direct access to all the major cloud service providers; more than 250 network service providers; at least 50 content providers; more than 160 IT services providers; in excess of 130 enterprises and financial services providers; and diverse IXPs and cybersecurity providers.

Teraco brings global content closer to the digital forefront and has evolved to meet the needs of modern computing demands. Teraco provides enterprises with world-class data centre facilities and access to a comprehensive ecosystem crucial for any enterprise’s digital transformation journey.

CLOUD ON-RAMPS
Cloud computing offers economies of scale that can dramatically reduce the cost to end-users. Using shared data centre facilities, also known as multi-tenant data centres, improves efficiencies in infrastructure use, as clients only pay for what they use. One of the most significant barriers to cloud adoption is data security and connectivity issues caused by the public internet (think network congestion, outages and other issues that may affect network performance). Today businesses realise the benefits of accessing cloud on-ramps directly to bypass the public internet in favour of more secure and private connections.

For an enterprise looking to migrate some or all its IT operations to the cloud, carrier-neutral data centres hosting key cloud on-ramps offer an attractive platform by providing secure, direct, flexible network connections to a wide range of local and global cloud service providers. Most enterprises are adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, which means they retain specific processes within a private cloud deployment housed in a highly available colocation facility while other operations are migrated into public cloud infrastructure.

At Teraco, clients connect directly to cloud on-ramps or via Africa Cloud Exchange (ACX), built with carrier-grade hardware that offers a physical connection to support multiple VLANs. ACX offers a private connection to the cloud, bypassing the public internet, reducing existing network costs and providing a secure, highly scalable solution to the cloud. Furthermore, Teraco clients benefit from free peering at NAPAfrica, the largest internet exchange in Africa and the sixth-largest globally, with more than 4 Tbps throughput daily. NAPAfrica services 28 Southern African countries through more than 615 unique ASNs.

COLOCATION
Companies increasingly consider colocation services provided by multi-tenant data centres as an ideal solution for their IT infrastructure. This is largely due to the escalating costs associated with building a private data centre and the versatility of commercial data centres.

Vendor-neutral data centres serve as entry points to connectivity and digital-service platforms, offering businesses entry into a digital-services ecosystem. The surge in demand for colocation services in Africa is propelled by enhanced connectivity and the increasing flow of intercontinental data traffic. In this highly connected world, the reliability and uptime of applications are vital to the successful functioning of any enterprise. Data centres are a reliable solution to unreliable power supply issues as colocation providers will provide SLA guarantees linked to the services offered.

INTERCONNECTION PLATFORM
As the demand for digital services grows, enterprises build digitally interconnected architectures that support real-time interactions spanning multiple key business partners. By colocating within interconnection ecosystems in Teraco, enterprises can provide dedicated, high-speed cross-connects between partners, service providers and networks to create a faster and more efficient end-user experience for their customers. Interconnection lowers the barrier to entry to new market opportunities while solving critical performance challenges such as latency and security, and amplifying existing capabilities.

PEERING AND CONTENT AGGREGATION
As data traffic volumes grow, enterprises, network operators, content delivery networks and cloud service providers peer to exchange internet traffic. To improve the availability of content, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Netflix have deployed their services in SA, which reduces the latency associated with transmitting content from Europe and the Americas. An increase in the establishment of peering exchanges, which play a fundamental role in ensuring content and cloud services are available locally, is a sign of an expanding digital economy. The number of active internet exchanges in Africa has grown in the past 12 years from 17 to 53 today, with a presence in 47 cities in 36 African countries.

DATA PROTECTION AND COMPLIANCE
With the advent of regulations around data protection globally, the data centre industry has embraced laws such as SA’s Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These regulations address data protection, privacy and the transfer of personal data. POPI, GDPR and a focus on security have led enterprises to use data centre providers offering robust physical security and compliance certifications.

At Teraco, this level of compliance includes Information Security Management Systems (ISO/IEC 27001), Quality Management Systems (ISO 9001), Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001), Energy Management Systems (ISO 500001), as well as Information Security Management including Payment Card Industry and Data Security Standards, and ISAE 3402 Type 2.

SUSTAINABILITY
The impact that today’s actions can have on tomorrow is a top priority for global organisations; embracing sustainability is a continuation of doing business. Enterprises are favouring sustainability as a key metric integral to their service contracts.

Organisations realise their data-centre footprint considerably impacts their carbon emissions. As more companies move their workloads to data centres that take greater accountability for their emissions, those with sustainability-led strategies can significantly advance their ambitions by moving to cloud providers that are Zero Carbon Committed.

Teraco received a silver Ecovadis sustainability rating in 2022 and is also Zero Carbon Committed and VMWare Cloud Verified. This means clients that host their cloud platforms at Teraco data centre facilities can leverage Teraco’s sustainability commitment to attain Zero Carbon Committed status, effectively reducing their carbon footprint.

The bottom line is that enterprises can offer differentiated services to their end users in an ESG-efficient and friendly way.

+27 (0)11 573 2800
[email protected]
www.teraco.co.za