Systems integrator Dimension Data, in partnership with its parent company NTT, is set to open data centres in South Africa “imminently”.
This was revealed by Dimension Data founder and executive chairman Jeremy Ord and CEO Grant Bodley, in an exclusive interview with ITWeb this morning.
“We see a huge demand for data centre capability in Africa; so jointly with NTT, we will be launching new data centres here in South Africa and looking to expand across the continent,” Bodley said.
Dimension Data’s data centre plans come amid a flurry of activity in the South African market, where IT spending is set to reach $26.4 billion in 2020, up 2.5% on 2019, according to an IDC report.
On the data centre front, last year saw US-based software giant Microsoft open two data centre regions in SA, becoming the first global provider to deliver cloud services from data centres on the African continent.
In April this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the opening of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region.
In March last year, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei started offering its cloud services in SA. The company is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner, from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions.
US-based enterprise software company Oracle in September last year also announced plans to launch data centres in SA this year.
“The actual launch of the new data centres that we are building in Johannesburg is imminent. In the next couple of days, I am sure,” Ord told ITWeb.
He explained that the data centres are for Dimension Data’s clients based in South Africa and in Africa, as well as global clients who need to have storage centres on the African continent.
“So AWS, Alibaba, Azure, etc, will be potential clients of ours. They are major clients of NTT data centres all around the world, and as such, what we are building anywhere in the world will be very similar to what we are building in South Africa and obviously taking advantage of the latest technology.
“All those major players are in our data centres all over the world and we will continue working with them.
“Also, the new high-speed cable that is going around Africa means there is more need for data centres on the continent, as there will be an explosion of data traffic coming out of Africa in the future,” Ord said.
Meanwhile, Bodley revealed the company is also in the process of “making one or two acquisitions to increase our capability across the hyperscaler landscape and working towards managing the whole application modernisation micro-services world as clients consume in a hybrid manner.
“For us, the ability to operate from cable to cloud and managing that entire ecosystem, be it legacy systems or modernising those systems, that’s where we see a massive opportunity,” Bodley said.
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