East Africa Data Centre expands capacity
A worker lays fibre optic cable along Waiyaki Way in Nairobi. County governments have been urged to waive way-leave fees for those laying fibre optic cables to pave way for high-speed internet connectivity. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- It hosts servers for Liquid Telecom, Tata, Level3, Seacom, Safaricom, JamiiTelcom, Access Kenya, Orange Telkom Kenya Ltd, Wananchi Online, and Frontier Optical Network.
The East Africa Data Centre has doubled the space where its facility is located in Nairobi’s Sameer Business Park as demand for hosting servers increase. The facility stands on a 500 square feet, but it will be increased to 1,000 square.
The centre hosts points of presence for global carriers owning fibre network infrastructure as well as carriers with international coverage.
It hosts servers for Liquid Telecom, Tata, Level3, Seacom, Safaricom, JamiiTelcom, Access Kenya, Orange Telkom Kenya Ltd, Wananchi Online, and Frontier Optical Network.
East Africa Data Centre is the only Tier 3 secure electronic data centre in east and central Africa with the expansion expected to cost Sh1 billion.
RACK SPACE
Dan Kwach, the general manager at East Africa Data Centre said the space is already 80 per cent booked.
“We had to ration the rack space when we were selling the first floor due to huge demand, until we could get the second floor built and operational,” he said.
Mr Kwach said the centre now has enough space, meaning that customers are not limited to the amount of rack space they want to buy.
“The EADC has transformed how data traffic is handled in the region. By providing a central point for interconnect services, it has reduced latency, improved data services, reduced costs and made it easier to transfer data across networks,” he said.
The data centre has also enabled financial and corporate organisations to store data and data backups securely, shielding the institutions from cybercrime attacks.
MOBILE MONEY
The expansion of rack space at the EADC comes in the backdrop of growing data security concerns in the country.
Last year, the ICT secretary Fred Matiang’i said Kenya stands to lose an estimated Sh2 billion through cybercrime. Mr Matiang’i said the number of cyber-attacks detected in cyberspace stood at 5.4 million, more than double the 2012 figure that stood at 2.6 million attacks.
Uganda, last year reported a surge in economic crimes, up 14.9 per cent, singling out cybercrime in mobile money and automated teller machine (ATM) fraud, as responsible for the loss of about Sh51 million.
This article first appeared in the Business Daily.
