Cloud data centres in SA: it never rains but it pours
After missing a self-imposed 2018 deadline, Microsoft finally opened two data centres in SA this week. First announced in May 2017, the Azure cloud data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town went live the day after Microsoft’s biggest data centre rival, Amazon Web Services (AWS), opened its first “Pop-up Loft” in Africa.
As a result, Amazon.com vice-president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels was in Johannesburg at the same time as Yousef Khalidi, corporate vicepresident of Azure Networking at Microsoft.
It was coincidence, but the presence of the bosses of the two biggest cloud computing platforms in the world made SA seem like an eligible single being wooed by highly desirable suitors. And both are putting massive resources behind their quest to become SA’s preferred partner in cloud.
AWS will open three data centres in the Cape Town area early next year, making the Cape Peninsula an “AWS region”, of which there are 19 worldwide.
Microsoft has 54 “cloud regions” running its Azure platform. However, unlike the AWS requirement for three data centres to make up a region, each Azure data centre represents a region, meaning SA will have two. The Azure platform itself will be the first of Microsoft’s cloud services to be delivered from the new data centres in SA. The Office 365 productivity suite, currently delivered to South African users from international data centres, will follow by the third quarter of this year.
Microsoft SA’s new MD, Lillian Barnard, said at the launch on Wednesday that Microsoft had already committed millions of dollars to funding skills development among SA’s young software developers, and to continued investment among independent software vendors to strengthen local intellectual property and accelerate their growth in the global market.
“We are already seeing great examples of how Microsoft’s investment in local innovation is having an impact on many of the partnerships we have with our customers in the private and public sector,” she said.
“We believe that our investment is in the spirit of Thuma Mina … it will mean more access to technologies and skills for many more people in this country.”
According to research by the International Data Corporation, spending by businesses on public cloud services in SA will nearly triple from R4.29bn in 2017 to R11.53bn by 2022. Significantly, the adoption of cloud services will generate 112,000 new jobs by then.
Equally important, according to the research, additional investments in cloud solutions is enabling organisations in SA to focus on innovation and building “digital businesses at scale”. The direct benefit in increased turnover? Close to R80bn in new revenue over the next five years.
No wonder, then, that smaller competitors are lining up. Huawei Cloud announced three weeks ago that its first cloud data centre in Africa will open in Johannesburg this month, followed by another in Cape Town. It may well be followed by Chinese retail giant Alibaba, which is expanding its Alibaba Cloud platform globally.
‘We believe that Microsoft’s investment in SA is in the spirit of Thuma Mina’