Teraco’s JB3 data centre facility is located within the Isando Campus in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.

Teraco Data Environments has completed construction of its JB3 data centre facility, located within the Isando Campus in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.

In a statement, the company says this multibillion-rand facility represents a strategic addition to Platform Teraco, offering enterprises a scalable platform for IT infrastructure deployment, while sustaining performance, reliability, security and wide network choice.

The completion of the JB3 data centre facility comes after Teraco, in November last year, announced it had started construction of a new hyperscale data centre (JB4), with 38-megawatts (MW) of critical power load, also located in Ekurhuleni.

JB4 is the latest expansion to Teraco’s growing data centre platform and takes critical power load capacity at Teraco facilities to over 110MW, which includes the Isando Campus JB1/JB3 (39MW), Bredell JB2 (13MW), Rondebosch Cape Town CT1 (3MW), Brackenfell Cape Town CT2 (18MW) and Durban (1MW).

Teraco invested R4 billion over the two phases of construction of JB4, which is expected to be up and running in the first quarter of 2022.

In May last year, the firm confirmed the construction of Teraco Cape Town 2, a new 30MW data centre facility. Construction on the site commenced in early March and will continue in line with local COVID-19 restrictions, with a targeted completion date of Q3 2021, the company said at the time.

The carrier- and cloud-neutral colocation data centre solutions provider notes that JB3 comprises 45 000sqm of building structure, 12 000sqm of data hall space, and 29MW of critical power load.

When combined with the existing Isando Campus facilities, the critical power load totals 40MW across the campus data centre footprint, with room for further growth.

The completion of the JB3 data centre comes as SA is witnessing growth in the data centre space, as international companies like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have also set up their own facilities in the country.

Systems integrator Dimension Data is also building its own data centre that it expects to be fully operational next year. It already operates 11 data centres with up to 10MW of IT load across Africa.

US-based enterprise software company Oracle in September 2019 also announced plans to launch data centres in SA. However, no update has been given on when this will happen, although the company had plans to open the facility last year.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei also recently started offering its cloud services in SA. The company is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner, from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions.

Jan Hnizdo, CEO of Teraco, says the latest Isando Campus expansion meets the growing demand by both cloud providers and enterprises for data centre capacity, and enables Teraco to offer highly-resilient and secure colocation facilities, while working towards ensuring its long-term vision of enabling digital transformation across the African continent.

Jan Hnizdo, CEO of Teraco.

“This investment also aligns with the support we pledged to the South African government’s investment drive and our commitment to investing billions of rands into South Africa’s digital infrastructure. As the leading interconnection hub across the continent, Teraco has over 600 clients, including key networks, cloud providers, global content, managed IT service providers, and direct access to Africa’s largest internet exchange – NAPAfrica – within its multitude of data centres.”

With over 200 telcos within Platform Teraco providing connectivity to Africa, Hnizdo says enterprises are now accelerating their digital transformation strategies and placing a greater focus on cloud adoption strategies.

“Teraco is making significant investments in providing access to digital infrastructure that is both resilient and highly-flexible. This offers enterprises the ability to scale as network strategies evolve in a world where fast and secure interconnection with strategic business partners and cloud onramps are a source of competitive advantage.”

The company says Platform Teraco provides low latency interconnection points to both cloud and content.

Hnizdo says Teraco has continued to see growth in cloud adoption strategies, making its role significant for those who need access to robust digital infrastructure.

“Our clients use the data centre to scale their IT infrastructure, adopt hybrid and multi-cloud architectures and interconnect with strategic business partners within the Teraco ecosystem. Over the last year, we have seen a 48% increase in direct interconnects to public cloud onramps, reflecting the increasing trend of cloud adoption by enterprises.”