{"id":448710,"date":"2022-07-05T13:01:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T11:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=448710"},"modified":"2022-07-05T13:09:17","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T11:09:17","slug":"africa-data-centres-samrand-data-centre-all-the-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/448710-africa-data-centres-samrand-data-centre-all-the-details.html","title":{"rendered":"Africa Data Centres&#8217; Samrand data centre \u2014\u00a0all the details"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Africa Data Centres&#8217; 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.<\/p>\n<p>The data centre also has the potential for significant expansion, with access to 30MW of power to grow the facility.<\/p>\n<p>MyBroadband spoke to Africa Data Centre&#8217;s group executive, Angus Hay, about the Samrand facility.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Hay explained that the Samrand data centre is one of few on the African continent that is a certified tier 4 facility.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tier 4 is at the top of the list. It&#8217;s basically the benchmark in redundancy and availability,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A tier 4 facility has fully redundant infrastructure, and that guarantees the highest availability and performance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-450984\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-2.jpg 800w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-2-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-2-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Regarding redundancy, Hay explained that tier 3 facilities aren&#8217;t fully redundant but are referred to as concurrently maintainable data centres.<\/p>\n<p>Using the example of generators for backup power, tier 3 facilities will feature one additional generator in case another fails.<\/p>\n<p>Tier 4 facilities, on the other hand, are fully redundant, meaning that everything is duplicated in case the original fails.<\/p>\n<p>Hay also explained that the Samrand facility is one of the most secure data centres on the African continent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s because it was built to meet the requirements of financial institutions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-450974\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand.jpg 800w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Africa-data-centres-samrand-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We quote a number in terms of the power that will be delivered to the customers&#8217; racks,&#8221; Hay stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So when we talk about a capacity of 30MW, we mean that we can handle 30MW of IT load from customers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The power supply is necessary to maintain two sets of infrastructure \u2014 mechanical and electrical \u2014 that are critical to the operation of data centres.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Typically, in a data centre, you focus on two sets of critical infrastructure,&#8221; Hay said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we&#8217;re going to maintain 100% availability of power, if we&#8217;re going to maintain the aircon environment with specific tolerances, by definition, we&#8217;ve got a whole bunch of electrical and mechanical infrastructure on the site.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He explained that Africa Data Centres&#8217; facilities derive their regular power supply from mains power that feeds from substations owned by local utilities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The backup power supply is typically operated with diesel generators, and each of them matches the scale of the power within the facility,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/448200-vox-in-major-restructuring-as-it-launches-nymbis-cloud-solutions.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vox in major restructuring as it launches Nymbis Cloud Solutions<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa Data Centres&#8217; Samrand facility is one of few top-tier data centres on the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":451404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[48635,1421,79560,35],"class_list":["post-448710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-hosting","tag-africa-data-centres","tag-angus-hay","tag-data-centre-park","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448800,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448710\/revisions\/448800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}