1. What attracted you to the CEO position at Open Access Data Centres?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nMany things were attractive about the role. Key for me was the opportunity to lead the construction of the architecture that I believe will transform Africa\u2019s digitisation journey.<\/p>\n
We have a clear opportunity to leap-frog other parts of the world by creating a unique tiered ecosystem of world-class, customer-centric, carrier-neutral data centres.<\/p>\n
From core hyperscale data centres to mid-range regional facilities and smaller edge data centres \u2013 we are decentralising the cloud and enabling content delivery to the point of use of the consumer.<\/p>\n
We can also move at pace, rapidly rolling out a transformational digital infrastructure agenda.<\/p>\n
I joined a world-class leadership team at WIOCC with an excellent track record and vision.<\/p>\n
2. As a new entrant into what is already a competitive data centre market in South Africa, what sets Open Access Data Centres apart?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nIt\u2019s a very important part of a bigger story.<\/p>\n
As part of the WIOCC Group – which immediately offers a great pedigree and an excellent starting point and DNA \u2013 we also have access to comprehensive, multi-carrier, hyperscale interconnectivity throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and into key global hubs.<\/p>\n
OADC is leveraging this open interconnectivity, together with the vibrant multi-carrier network ecosystems it is establishing at each of its facilities, to provide a comprehensive offering to customers requiring digital infrastructure solutions in Africa.<\/p>\n
3. What else is OADC bringing to the market?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWe\u2019ve assembled and continue to grow a great team with an extensive track record in the global and African digital infrastructure industry.<\/p>\n
We are innovating not only in the delivery of the core-to-edge infrastructure that is supporting 5G rollout and improved end-user experiences, but also in other areas of the business, including field team management and application of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n
Finally, our focus is and will continue to be on delivery efficiency, operational excellence, and outstanding client satisfaction.<\/p>\n
4. How has the development of its data centre market contributed to Africa\u2019s digitisation journey to date?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nIn recent years, we\u2019ve seen significant investment going into large, core data centres in major urban centres in the most developed markets – with South Africa leading the way and Nigeria then Kenya following behind.<\/p>\n
All three markets are seeing significant uptake by global cloud operators and content distribution networks – while the availability of high-quality colocation facilities is leading the rest of the wholesale community and an increasing number of enterprises to turn to adopting third-party colocation services.<\/p>\n
Some smaller facilities have been launched to meet local demand at key hubs in a wider set of countries, such as Bofinet in Gaborone, TelOne in Harare, and Dalkom Somalia in Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
While this model of deploying data storage and \u201ccompute\u201d at large, remote facilities offers clients cost and operational benefits through economies of scale, the result is a centralisation of connectivity and capability within these hubs, leaving the majority of Africa underserved.<\/p>\n
5. What do you see as the opportunities to step this up and bring more capability to Africa? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWith data volumes growing, processing demands increasing, and low-latency requirements needing to be serviced, the architecture needs to change \u2013 and quickly – to one that fully supports localised delivery, storage and processing of data and content.<\/p>\n
The cloud needs to be \u201cdecentralised\u201d to support content delivery not only to the office but increasingly to the home, the hotel, the car and everywhere in between.<\/p>\n
Social media means edge-to-edge content generation and consumption, not the core-out consumption we\u2019re currently set up to support.<\/p>\n
Deployment of local storage and local processing within a highly connected edge data centre ecosystem will be critical going forward.<\/p>\n
6. What is OADC doing to change Africa\u2019s digitisation journey?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWe are addressing the need to change urgently – moving fast to roll out an interconnected, open-access network of smaller, edge data centres to business and content hubs country-wide, supported by core facilities at key locations.<\/p>\n
Starting in South Africa, this initiative with over 30 edge data centres is enabling clients to cost-effectively deploy new network technologies and expand coverage into new markets.<\/p>\n
At the same time, they are implementing an architecture that minimises latency through content being served locally, optimising end-user experience and underpinning the successful rollout of new, time-sensitive applications.<\/p>\n
Click here to learn more about Open Access Data Centres.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open Access Data Centres\u2019 newly appointed CEO Dr Ayotunde Coker discusses the company\u2019s plans and how it is digitising South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341030,"featured_media":462607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28937],"tags":[78262],"class_list":["post-462465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industrynews","tag-open-access-data-centres-oadc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462465"}],"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\/341030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462469,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462465\/revisions\/462469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}