14 November 2008
Vodacom this week unveiled a R100-million state-of-the-art data centre in Johannesburg. The 1 000 square metre facility has the capacity to host up to 20 000 dedicated client servers or up to 650 000 virtual machines, allowing companies to do away with their own costly data centres.
Vodacom Business executive director Wally Beelders explained that they had developed a world-class hosting facility that would enable the company’s clients to focus on their core businesses.
Beelders said that information technology (IT) operations were a crucial aspect of any company’s business, and that one of the main concerns was business continuity, with companies relying on their IT systems to run their operations.
“If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or stopped completely,” he said in a statement this week. “Our new data centre will ensure that a company can continue to run without having to worry about their IT infrastructure.”
For companies of all sizes
Beelders said that the cost of setting up and running one’s own data centre infrastructure, with back-up generators, air cooling, building management systems and associated systems was prohibitive, and as such, companies of all sizes could benefit from the range of hosting services offered by the data centre.
“The Vodacom Business data centre caters for large corporates with vast IT infrastructure needs, to small businesses … and small office home office businesses which need effective hosting services.
“By making use of our data centre, clients will benefit from a safe and cost-effective data centre environment, including back-up services that ensure the highest level of availability and network performance.”
Highest level of security, reliability
The data centre provides a state-of-the-art environment that can be used as a primary facility or a disaster recovery site. Biometric security systems, video surveillance, on-site security officers and surplus power, heating ventilation and air conditioning as well as fire-suppression systems ensure the highest levels of security and reliability for customer equipment.
The Vodacom Business data ventre will operate on a permanent basis, offering services including basic web hosting, server co-location, dedicated hosting, managed storage and managed backups amongst others.
It is fully redundant and robust, while enabling “exceptional user experience free from bandwidth bottlenecks”.
The centre is classified as a Tier 4 data centre, which is designed to host mission-critical computer systems, with fully redundant subsystems and compartmentalised security zones controlled by biometric access control methods.
“Secure client office environments are available for all Vodacom Business hosting customers together with a world-class boardroom, fully equipped with video conferencing infrastructure – making planning and deployment of IT equipment convenient,” the statement read.
SAinfo reporter
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