South Africa’s explosion of cloud computing providers
South Africa’s cloud computing space has seen an influx of major players launching services in the country over the past three years.
These include Amazon, Microsoft, and Huawei, which have all launched cloud regions in South Africa.
Cloud providers have spent billions of rands establishing their infrastructure locally.
The launch of Amazon and Microsoft cloud nodes in South Africa meant that companies and developers could host their applications and data within the country.
In addition to lower latencies, this made it easier for government-linked entities and companies with strict data protection requirements to use such services.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened its Africa region, based in Cape Town, in April 2020.
The region is named “Africa (Cape Town)” with the label “af-south-1”.
AWS told MyBroadband that the arrival of its infrastructure in South Africa would assist a range of organisations. It would also help developers start businesses and build new products and services.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft launched its South African Azure region in March 2019.
The company recently launched Azure Availability Zones in its South Africa North region.
Microsft said this would bring higher availability and asynchronous replication across Azure regions for recovery protection.
Oracle
Oracle’s Johannesburg region went live in January 2022. It is the cloud computing provider’s first region on the continent.
The company initially announced its intentions to launch 20 new cloud data centres, including one in South Africa, by the end of 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed its plans.
Oracle said the new facilities would make it easier for businesses in the region to improve performance and protect data.
Huawei
Huawei began offering its commercial cloud services in South Africa in March 2019 when it launched its Johannesburg data centre. It aims to help African governments, carriers, and organisations across various industries.
The company said South Africa was one of the most diverse and promising emerging markets globally.
It plans to launch another data centre in Cape Town and has hinted at launching an availability zone in Durban.
Acronis
Acronis unveiled its Cyber Cloud Data Centre in Johannesburg — one of the 111 currently being deployed by the company — in late January 2022.
The data centre in Johannesburg will provide local organisations with a location within South Africa to store critical business and client data.
“A local presence is a necessity for modern cloud businesses,” the company said when it launched.
Along with various global cloud computing players launching availability zones in South Africa, data centre infrastructure providers have been investing billions into their local facilities.
Vantage Data Centres announced in October 2021 that it had begun construction on its Waterfall data centre. The first phase is expected to come online in the last quarter of 2022.
Africa Data Centres is investing R7.2 billion in data centres throughout Africa, including one in South Africa.
Teraco Data Environments announced in October 2021 that it had completed the first phase of its new data centre in Brackenfell, Cape Town.
Open Access Data Centres (OADC) revealed that it had deployed its first open-access edge data centre in South Africa in early May 2022.
OADC said the facility would support 5G rollouts, network extensions, and the internet service provider and fibre network operator infrastructure in new areas.
The company also promised that the facility would contribute to improved latency and improve end-user experiences.
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