IBM is expanding its cloud data infrastructure in Africa. The company has announced that it is opening a new Cloud Data Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa. This means from now on African companies that rely on IBM’s cloud platform will no longer have to keep their applications outside Africa.
The company has partnered with Gijima, an IT firm in South Africa and Vodacom for this launch.
IBM has recently been investing massively in cloud data, opening up data centers globally. Currently, there are 46 cloud data centers running across six continents and the company says this new cloud center in South Africa is designed to support cloud adoption and customer demand across the African continent. It also adds that the launch also reinforces the joint partnership between SAP and IBM aimed at accelerating a customers’ ability to run core business in the cloud. IBM is the premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for SAP’s business critical applications.
“We’re working to drive cloud adoption that best leverages a customer’s existing IT investments,” Hamilton Ratshefola, IBM Country General Manager in South Africa said. “Our new Cloud Data Center gives customers a local onramp to IBM Cloud services including moving mission critical SAP workloads to the cloud with ease. It also gives customers the added flexibility of keeping data within country which is a key differentiator for IBM.”
The IBM Cloud Data Center will provide enterprise customers in South Africa and Africa with access to IBM’s global network of Cloud Data Centers and services expertise. According to IBM, this will enable businesses to run critical applications on the cloud, providing access to a broad array of services for building in-country cloud solutions, while offering faster network speeds to improve performance and reach end users even faster.
“The increase of enterprise cloud computing on the continent is being driven by large enterprise and multinational organisations expanding their presence and IT requirements across Africa,” Vuyani Jarana, Chief Officer of Vodacom Business said. “CIO’s are looking to gain efficiencies and cut cost by moving more of their IT infrastructure, applications and processes into the Cloud. Vodacom’s extensive Fixed and Mobile network infrastructure, Pan African and global footprint and its investment in data center infrastructure provides the ideal platform and environment to deliver cloud services to large and multinational enterprises.“
The announcement showcases IBM’s global reach and broad portfolio of cloud services capable of supporting very large enterprises like big retailers and financial institutions.
“Gijima as a 100 percent black owned South African company, is proud to be the cloud partner of choice for these unique IBM services,” Eileen Wilton, CEO of Gijima said.
This new annoucement is the latest investment IBM is making in Africa’s future and the development of the continent’s economy including IBM’s Africa Research labs, state-of-the-art Innovation Centers as well as the IBM Technical Academy and IBM University Program.
