OADC launches open-access edge data center in South Africa
Open Access Data Centres (OADC) opened its first large-scale, open-access edge data center environment named OADC Edge in South Africa as the first of its anticipated steps to expand its presence across Africa.
OADC says it consolidates edge computing, edge data centers and hyperscale connectivity within a single ecosystem for businesses. Among its uses, OADC names the ability to locate equipment securely at remote locations for 5G operators, ISPs, and fiber providers seeking to broaden their network reach into new markets, latency improvements, and large data volume processing.
“In recent years, Africa has seen massive investment in hyperscale data centers focused on the continent’s largest metropolitan areas. However, a presence in a single data center is no longer sufficient to address a country or region,” says Bob Wright, chief technical officer of OADC. He adds that the growing desire to make content available and process an ever-growing volume of data closer to customers is advancing the implementation of a core-to-edge architecture with meshed local and regional data centers fully connected to Africa’s network infrastructure across multiple countries and cities.
OADC’s vision for providing core-to-edge data center offerings includes the building of regional data centers across major cities as well as over 100 0.5 MW OADC Edge data centers.
The company says the first 17 OADC Edge data centers are live in South Africa with colocation, rooftop access, and high-speed network interconnectivity between facilities at up to 100 Gbps and on multiple routes.
There are future plans to build key connectivity hubs with new 2 to 3MW, Tier-III regional OADC facilities coming online during the third quarter of 2022 and more than 100 OADC Edge data centers expected to be live by the end of 2022.
OADC plans to establish its edge data centers in Nigeria later this year as well.
Other players in Africa’s edge data center growth include Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Unitas Global, Equinix, and Digital Realty.
Article Topics
Digital Realty | edge data center | Equinix | OADC | South Africa | Unitas Global
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