The joint venture between Etix Everywhere, Ngoya and Africa Investment Group (AIG) announced the start of the construction of a Tier four data centre in Accra, Ghana. This multi-tenant data centre (MTDC) will be carrier- and vendor-neutral.
A trusted design for a reliable data centre
Etix Accra #1 will be the first Tier four data centre in West Africa. The Tier certification from the Uptime Institute guarantees to customers an infrastructure, a capacity, and processes in place to provide a truly maximum level of availability. “African data centres always face a power supply challenge,” states Dr Samuel Ankrah, Chief Executive Officer of AIG. “We decided to entrust Etix Everywhere and their proven design and technical know-how to tackle this issue. The Tier IV certification aims to ensure the quality of our infrastructure for our clients.”
Tackling the power supply challenge
“Due to the unpredictable nature of African power utilities and to secure an uninterruptible power supply for the data centre, Etix Everywhere proposed to build a solar plant next to the data centre”, says Ross Macdonald, CEO of Ngoya. “The infrastructure will be able to support the data centre at full capacity.” The solar plant will be built and operated by Etix Energy, a subsidiary of Etix Group.
Based on the modular design developed by Etix Everywhere, the first phase of the project will offer a capacity of 150 racks. Over half of the first phase is already booked. Due to the increasing demand for carrier-neutral colocation services, the joint venture is planning to build a second site in Ghana to provide full redundancy.
A pan-African strategy
This data centre marks the next phase of Etix Everywhere’s expansion throughout Africa. “We are building a global network of colocation data centres so that our customers get access to the best infrastructure wherever it is needed,” explains Antoine Boniface, Managing Director of Etix Everywhere. “The boom in Internet access on the African continent will lead to an increasing demand for carrier-neutral data centres. This is the reason why we are delivering a network of interconnected data centres providing a pan-African platform for the delivery of digital services.”
Etix Accra #1 will be the second data centre of Etix Everywhere located on the African continent, after Etix Casablanca #1. Ghana is a vibrant West African economy which is well supplied with submarine cables, mobile network operators and ISPs and strategically situated to provide a stepping stone into the region.
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