Computer technology company Oracle has announced the opening of a data centre to provide cloud services across Africa.
The data centre, which opened this week in Johannesburg, will provide local cloud services from Oracle across Africa for the first time. Reuters reports that Africa will be the US company's 37th cloud region – a term that refers to an area that allows customers to get faster access from a local data centre.
Other big names, including Microsoft, Amazon and Huawei, already have facilities in South Africa, underlining the growing importance of a local presence in a region where increased demand for faster computing from African banks and telecom firms has attracted major cloud operators. Indeed, Oracle cites the rapidly growing demand for enterprise cloud services on the continent as a driver for its launch.
Oracle says that the Johannesburg region is built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which enables customers to easily migrate IT workloads and data platforms to the cloud or build new cloud-native applications.
In addition, Oracle says it offers a wide range of application modernisation and cloud strategies to help African organisations operate with global competitiveness.
Sustainability is also part of the company’s strategy. Oracle has pledged to power all Oracle Cloud regions worldwide with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.
Fast connectivity provided by a number of subsea cable landing stations and its position as Africa's most developed economy have made South Africa a key location for cloud operators like Oracle. However, regular readers will know that many smaller cloud operators are also entering or expanding in the market – and not just in South Africa.
Late last year, for example, we reported that carrier-neutral co-location data centre provider Africa Data Centres had unveiled what it called the continent’s largest-ever data centre expansion plan.
