Paratus to launch largest data facility in Nam

Paratus Namibia will be launching its carrier neutral Data Centre (DC) facility in Windhoek, Namibia in August 2022. This new facility, named Armada Data Centre by the company, will be the first carrier neutral and the largest DC facility in Namibia. It will complement the Equiano Cable, which lands in Namibia in the next few months and for which Paratus has already built the landing station. Paratus is investing N$123-million to construct the Armada Data Centre facility, which is built on the Brakwater Campus and houses two separate colocation data halls (DC1 and DC2), each of which are supported by two separate energy centre pairs. Housed in 734m², a total of 240 cabinets will provide essential state-of-the-art colocation options, data, and cloud services. Armada will help meet the ever-increasing customer demand for these services and, as existing facilities in Namibia are at capacity, fill the market void.

This demand falls squarely in line with global and continental requirements for complex colocation services. ResearchandMarkets.com reports that the African data centre market was worth US$2 billion in 2020. The Arizton.com market report states the data centre market saw investments of USD2.663-million in 2021 and is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.73% between 2022 and 2027. Paratus, which has already built two DC facilities in Angola and one in Zambia in recent years, has already confirmed 55% occupancy of one of the two Armada Data Halls in Namibia.

Technological advancement

Chief Operations Officer of Paratus, Schalk Erasmus explains: “Our customers understand that technological advancement, in the form of big data, cloud services and artificial intelligence (AL), is critical for their future success. They need an independent, secure, and highly sophisticated DC facility. The Paratus Armada DC will store and protect client data 24/7; house and physically protect all equipment and computer systems; handle the migration from off-site to the data centre; provide back-up power generation; and offer an array of add-on services and features.”

Although Paratus operates its own resilient fibre network that interconnects the Armada Data Centre facility to the rest of the world, it is carrier neutral, providing clients and tenants with host connectivity options and freedom of choice.

Paratus Namibia MD, Andrew Hall says: “We are committed to delivering Africa’s quality network. Our connectivity and network services are complimented by our hosting, firewall and storage capability. We can work with our partners and our customers to help ensure that Africa realises its full commercial potential. Armada is another testament to that vision.”