{"id":539403,"date":"2024-06-04T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=539403"},"modified":"2024-06-04T12:14:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T10:14:10","slug":"huge-change-in-south-africas-cloud-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/539403-huge-change-in-south-africas-cloud-plans.html","title":{"rendered":"Huge change in South Africa’s cloud plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has U-turned on plans for state-owned data centres in the country.<\/p>\n

The government previously wanted to control its own data centre facilities.<\/p>\n

However, it says the challenges of electricity supply, procuring technical skills, and costs associated with building and maintaining data centres could render them unsustainable.<\/p>\n

This is according to the digital infrastructure clause in the DCDT’s National Policy on Data and Cloud<\/a>, published by minister Mondli Gungubele on 31 May 2024.<\/p>\n

It notes that South Africa is home to data centre investors and cloud providers with global reach and experience that provide affordable data storage and processing facilities.<\/p>\n

While South Africa’s data centre industry is booming, the DCDT says the government has limited resources and must balance its finite financial resources.<\/p>\n

“The prohibitive costs associated with building, running, and maintaining these facilities could render them unsustainable and impractical, potentially becoming white elephants in a few years,” it says.<\/p>\n

In addition, the cost of installing alternative energy sources to prevent disruptions resulting from South Africa’s electricity supply challenges is high.<\/p>\n

“Given that data centres operate 24 hours a day and consume vast amounts of electricity, reliance solely on the national grid may be insufficient,” the DCDT says.<\/p>\n

It added that competing with established data centre players for technical skills would be challenging for a government with limited funding.<\/p>\n

“The establishment and operation of data centres require specialized technical skills, which may not be widely available in South Africa at present,” it said.<\/p>\n

“Even where such skills exist, the government must compete with the private sector, with its limited funding, to attract these skilled professionals.”<\/p>\n

“Given these challenges, it may not be feasible for the government to own and manage data centres with its limited resource base,” the DCDT added.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, former Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies<\/p><\/div>\n

The 2024 National Policy on Data and Cloud represents a complete about-face of the DCDT’s plans.<\/p>\n

In April 2021, former minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams published<\/a> a proposed National Data and Cloud Policy, which called for establishing a High-Performance Computing and Data Processing Centre (HPCDPC).<\/p>\n

It proposed that the HPCDPC would consolidate existing publicly funded data centres.<\/p>\n

“The HPCDPC will leverage the existing computing capacity and technical capabilities of the CSIR and SITA, and will operate in conformance with international best practice,” it said.<\/p>\n

“The HPCDPC shall have access to the excess capacity of public funded data centres of entities such as Sentech and Broadband Infraco, Eskom and Transnet.”<\/p>\n

The document outlined the HPCDPC’s roles, including providing cloud services for state entities, national departments, provinces, municipalities, metros, state-owned companies, universities, and research centres.<\/p>\n

All government data would be stored in the facility.<\/p>\n

The State Digital Infrastructure Company would provide connectivity and the interconnection of the HPCDPC with other public data centres.<\/p>\n

“The HPCDPC shall be replicated with two similar centres to ensure the availability of backup and business continuity in instances where the main centre comes under cyberattack,” the policy added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communication and Digital Technologies says data centres are expensive and could become white elephants in a few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":514091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[22807,66538,35,72090,16544],"class_list":["post-539403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-hosting","tag-data-centres","tag-department-of-communications-and-digital-technologies-dcdt","tag-headline","tag-mondli-gungubele","tag-stella-ndabeni-abrahams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539403"}],"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=539403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539471,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539403\/revisions\/539471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}