Africa Data Centres’ Samrand data centre — all the details
Africa Data Centres’ Samrand facility is one of the only top-tier data centres on the continent, featuring fully redundant infrastructure, 6,000 square metres of white space, and approximately 2,400 racks.
The data centre also has the potential for significant expansion, with access to 30MW of power to grow the facility.
MyBroadband spoke to Africa Data Centre’s group executive, Angus Hay, about the Samrand facility.
“The facility itself is 6,000 square metres of white space. It currently has four data halls, and each of those halls can take around 600 racks,” he said.
Hay explained that the Samrand data centre is one of few on the African continent that is a certified tier 4 facility.
“Tier 4 is at the top of the list. It’s basically the benchmark in redundancy and availability,” he said.
“A tier 4 facility has fully redundant infrastructure, and that guarantees the highest availability and performance.”
Regarding redundancy, Hay explained that tier 3 facilities aren’t fully redundant but are referred to as concurrently maintainable data centres.
Using the example of generators for backup power, tier 3 facilities will feature one additional generator in case another fails.
Tier 4 facilities, on the other hand, are fully redundant, meaning that everything is duplicated in case the original fails.
Hay also explained that the Samrand facility is one of the most secure data centres on the African continent.
“Not only is it built to tier 4, but it also is one of the most physically secure data centre sites in South Africa and on the African continent,” he said.
“That’s because it was built to meet the requirements of financial institutions.”
Hay highlighted that data centres are usually defined by the number of megawatts of load they can handle, adding that the Samrand facility has a lot of room to expand with its power supply of 30MW.
“We quote a number in terms of the power that will be delivered to the customers’ racks,” Hay stated.
“So when we talk about a capacity of 30MW, we mean that we can handle 30MW of IT load from customers.”
“A typical data hall consumes somewhere in the order of two to three megawatts, so our ultimate expansion on that site includes a number of other data halls which we are busy constructing or will be busy constructing,” he added.
The power supply is necessary to maintain two sets of infrastructure — mechanical and electrical — that are critical to the operation of data centres.
“Typically, in a data centre, you focus on two sets of critical infrastructure,” Hay said.
“If we’re going to maintain 100% availability of power, if we’re going to maintain the aircon environment with specific tolerances, by definition, we’ve got a whole bunch of electrical and mechanical infrastructure on the site.”
He explained that Africa Data Centres’ facilities derive their regular power supply from mains power that feeds from substations owned by local utilities.
“The backup power supply is typically operated with diesel generators, and each of them matches the scale of the power within the facility,” he added.
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