Paratus Angola has announced that its datacentres in Luanda have been awarded ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and PCI-DSS certifications.

Paratus Angola provides integrated telecommunications and IT solutions for the corporate sector in Angola. In 2019, the company inaugurated its second datacentre.

Paratus Angola says the carrier neutral facilities have over 8,500 servers’ capacity, triple connectivity redundancy through fibre, microwave and satellite, Cold Aisle Containment and redundant CRAC cooling units, 2-Megawatt power capacity, connection with all major telecom operators “and, mainly, security, monitoring and local support 24/7 with specialised teams.”

In general terms, ISO certifications are seals of approval from the International Standardisation Organisation.

Paratus Angola DC says information and quality management are of utmost importance and acquiring the ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001, and the PCI-DSS certifications serve as confirmation that it is performing at optimum levels.

In its announcement the company describes the ISO/IEC 27001 certification as one of the most recognised and most stringent information security standards.

A statement from Paratus Angola reads, “This certification informs the necessary steps to protect its clients’ information from data breaches, unauthorised access, and other disruptive data security threats. Even though Paratus does comply with the local Data Protection Act in Angola, by acquiring the ISO/IEC 27001 certification makes the DC also compliant with international requirements and reassures clients that their information and data is safe and fully protected.”

The last certification acquired by Paratus Angola is PCI Data Security Standard v3.2.1 and this covers all physical security aspects of the datacentre. This certification also speaks to financial industries, since they are all required to store, process, and transmit payments through a PCI-compliant institution.

“Having this certification proves that Paratus is readily available to host financial institutions as well as fully secure financial data,” the company adds.

Paratus Angola MD, Francisco de Leite says: “As a customer focused business, these certificates validate our promise to our clients of delivering the highest quality service 24/7. We’ve passed the international inspections and we can, in turn, help enable our customers to implement their local and international digital strategies and applications.”

The news comes just months after the Paratus DC in Lusaka, Zambia received the same international approvals.

Load-shedding in Zambia

As is the case in South Africa, the issue of load-shedding has come under the spotlight in Zambia and according to Paratus Zambia, the Southern African country faces up to 12 hours of power cuts in a single day.

The company says, “Power outages can result in costly data loss, disruption to production and decreased customer satisfaction, all of which can have a detrimental impact on a company's bottom line. The risks of hosting your own equipment during load-shedding are clear. A loss of power to critical business infrastructure can lead to data corruption, loss of productivity, and a total inability to service customers. In addition, many companies do not have the resources or expertise to ensure their servers are protected against prolonged power outages, leaving them vulnerable to significant losses.”

Paratus Zambia believes its datacentre offers a solution in that it can guarantee 24-hour resilient power supply ensured because the datacentre runs at a 1-megawatt power capacity with two dedicated generators.

The company says, “Each on-site data hall has connectivity resilience, and each cabinet has dual UPS feeds which deliver up to 3.5kVA. It is advantageous to have UPS systems in place as this allows for back-up power to be activated in case there is a utility power outage. However, having a dual UPS feed is more beneficial, as this means that there are two separate sets of these components always operating independently, so if the one cuts out, the other one automatically starts operating.”

The Paratus Zambia DC offers colocation services. This means customers are given the option to rent space within the datacentre for their equipment.

Paratus says among the benefits of using colocation services is unlimited 24/7 physical access to equipment and the facility.

“The datacentre has been designed to ensure optimal resilience and ease of maintenance. Additionally, it features redundant systems such as power, cooling, and connectivity. Each system has a primary and alternate setup, which allows them to work together to ensure maximum uptime and keep our customer's systems online,” the company states.

Country Manager of Paratus Zambia, Marius van Vuuren says: “At a time when businesses must make plans to cope with the power outages, I’m pleased that with our DC we have built the highest standard of infrastructure and considered all the services that are needed. And this means that we can indeed provide a safe harbour in any load-shedding storm. Protecting your data and ensuring your business's continuity is vital, and the risk is simply too great to leave it to chance.”