Teraco opens SA`s first vendor neutral data centre
Teraco opened the doors of its vendor neutral data centre in Cape Town this month. For the first time ever, carriers, corporates, ISPs and IT service providers get unrestricted choice in what they do with their data, in a secure facility built to international best practices.
Vendor neutral means that Teraco customers can connect to any carrier, network operator or service provider, as well as any other customer, within the data centre, without restriction. There are standard, open interconnection policies between all service providers and customers.
To date, outsourced data centre facilities have typically been offered by the Internet service providers, bundled with their Internet access or managed hosting services, or by the large IT outsourcing companies, bundled with outsourcing, systems integration or hosted application services.
In contrast, Teraco limits its activities to only providing infrastructure and facilities to avoid all conflicts of interest. Teraco takes care of the practical side of data centre management such as infrastructure redundancy, climate control, guaranteed electrical power, security and protection and maintenance.
"There is absolute focus on taking care of the physical space and honouring our quite punitive service level agreements," says Lex van Wyk, managing director of Teraco Data Environments. "We remain neutral and offer customers the freedom of choice to purchase or sell products and services to whomever they wish. You want to buy your connectivity from one company, Internet access from another, and then do back-ups with yet another that`s okay with us. It`s your business. We don`t ever compete with our customers. We just want to be sure that the data centre is perfectly in order. All the time."
The Teraco Data Centre goes live with carrier connections from Neotel and FastNet in place, Vodacom Business and Telkom in the pipeline, and points of presence from leading ISPs such as WebAfrica.
Alphonzo Samuels from Telkom Wholesale says: "Telkom fully endorses the development of a carrier neutral data centre for the ICT industry in South Africa. Other deregulated markets around the world have seen this happen too. It presents a neutral environment where carriers will be able to interconnect their networks, free from historic legacy issues." Telkom is currently finalising network interconnection and transmission services, which are expected to be available to customers within the Teraco data centre.
"The timing for this business is right," says Van Wyk. Communication Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri created a de facto complete liberalisation of the South African telecommunications space when the courts affirmed the right to self-provision. As a result 533 operators have been awarded electronic communications network services (ECNS) licences enabling them to build networks. "Now, local companies can benefit from vendor neutral data centres that give them global best practice facilities, unrestricted choice and access to many players in the industry, under one roof," says Van Wyk.
When discussing why Neotel chose to work with Teraco, Network Operations Manager, Marnus Kruger, says: "This partnership allows Neotel to offer Teraco`s customers our full range of enterprise services while enabling seamless connectivity to Neotel`s national long distance network."
"It also provides the ideal neutral location where Neotel can interconnect its network with other carriers," adds Van Wyk.