State-of-the-art data
centre to be built in Ethiopia
F
irst Brick Holdings has announced that
it is establishing and investing in ‘Raxio
Ethiopia’, which will build and operate
the first state-of-the-art, privately owned
data centre in the east African country.
In line with First Brick’s first data centre
facility in Uganda, Raxio Uganda, the
new data centre will be constructed and
operated as a Tier III standard facility,
serving the large demand for high-quality
co-location data centre services in Ethiopia.
The announcement comes as the
telecoms sector in Ethiopia becomes
increasingly liberalised, with recent
regulatory changes designed to
enable broader technology access and
encourage the development of technology
infrastructure. This reflects the regional
trend of increased demand for high
quality environments for local storage,
business critical systems and data hosting
solutions, such as local cloud services, as
well as the need for external data recovery
sites for business continuity.
The key target industries for Raxio Ethiopia
will be financial services, cloud service
providers, IT companies, media companies,
local and regional enterprises, and content
delivery networks. As the telecom sector
opens up, new carriers and Internet service
providers will join to create a new hub of
connectivity in the country.
Raxio Ethiopia will offer data centre
colocation services where customers
can house their computing, networking,
storage and critical IT infrastructure
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
Raxio will also supplement its core
colocation offering with several additional
services, including cross connection and
remote hands.
Robert Mullins, Executive Director at
First Brick Holdings, said: “Recent ICT
and regulatory trends in Ethiopia mark it
out as an ideal location for high-quality
co-location data centre services. The
government has embarked on a process
that will lead to a broader liberalisation of
the telecom sector where new operators
will be allowed to enter the market, and
there is also a large opportunity for the
numerous local, regional and international
cloud services providers seeking adequate
facilities in-country from where they can
provide their services.
“We believe Raxio Ethiopia will have a
transformational effect on the Ethiopian
digital economy by providing a critical
and missing part of digital infrastructure
in the country.
“The state-of-the-art facility will enable
Ethiopian companies to operate more
effectively locally, to compete in a regional
and global context and will provide an
environment where new companies
focused on the digital economy can thrive.
“It will have significant knock-on effects,
creating opportunities for technology-
savvy employment and broader
technological exchange.” ◊
The data centre will meet the uptime,
redundancy and maintainability
requirements established under the Tier
III standard. The facility will also adhere to
the principle of neutrality, both for carriers
and ISPs as new players begin to enter the
Ethiopian market, and for cloud service
providers, that will be able to operate
freely from within the data centre.
in an optimally operated and secure
environment. By co-locating in Raxio’s
facility, customers will benefit from
a ‘shared infrastructure’ model, and
substantially reduce their operational and
capital costs while improving application
performance and flexibility.
Robert Mullins, Executive Director at
First Brick Holdings
Issue 09
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