Cloud Exchange Partners with Huawei to Launch Africa’s First Prefabricated Data Centre

Cloud Exchange, a leading system Integrator in West Africa and a provider of end-to-end Information Technology (IT) system solutions, has officially launched Africa's first uptime institute tier IV modular prefabricated data center in collaboration with telecommunications giant, Huawei.

The state-of-the-art data center was unveiled on Thursday, September 30, 2021 at a grand ceremony held at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria. The introduction was in line with Cloud Exchange's expansion of its service offerings from systems integration, hybrid cloud infrastructure to Tier IV data center colocation, interconnects and cross-connects, managed network and security, private and public cloud services.

Speaking during the event, Chief Executive Officer of Cloud Exchange, Mr Glad Dibetso said Nigeria’s growing digital economy drove the development of the data center.

According to him, "the tier IV data center vision was born from the burning platform we were on in 2016. We had an audacious vision to build the first African Tier IV Prefabricated data center certified by Uptime Institute. We wanted to be part of the solution by finding tailor-made solutions fit for purpose and pragmatic for the continent.

“Infrastructure, especially in ICT has continued to hold the continent back. We knew that for African to fully participate in the future, we all need to improve ICT infrastructure as it is the bedrock of digitalization.

“We did not know how we will accomplish the Tier IV dream; however, we had the will which aligned with the quest to do meaningful work; it always seems impossible until it’s done. The effort of our employees, partners, clients, and industry stakeholders have achieved a green Tier IV data center. We not only achieved the best DC internationally, but we also made sure it’s good for the environment. We have built the very first tier IV Data Centre in West Africa, the first green one free of air and noise pollution and one that is also free of the effects of FM200 contamination,” he said.

In the same vein, Adetoyese Oyerinde, Head, Data Centre and Operation at Cloud Exchange West Africa explained that as a customer-centric company, Cloud Exchange realized that the only guarantee for its operation was to go for the highest level of availability threshold obtainable in the world of Data Centers: A tier IV Data Centre, the facility that promises a minimum of 99.995% availability.

According to him, "this translates into total redundancy, continuous cooling, fault tolerance and unmatchable reliability that has not been witnessed before in sub–Saharan Africa".

He noted that the difference between Tier III and Tier IV Data Centre has always been under-emphasized. "It is all in numbers, a downtime of 96 minutes compared to 26.3 minutes, a lot can happen in 70 minutes, a lot can be lost in 70 minutes and a lot of money can be made in 70 minutes. Tier IV also promises just more than availability, it promises reliability, it promises excellence, it promises adaptability, and all these have been built into the very first Uptime Institute Tier IV Data Centre in West Africa", he explained.

Mr. Eric, who is the deputy MD of Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited, said” Huawei has been delivering top ICT solutions for over 22 years in Nigeria since 1999. For the past 20+ years, Huawei has been providing and supporting our Partners, Customers and Industries with our unique solutions to build the best practices like Cloud Exchange Data Centre”.

Huawei’s solution uses a 3.6-m high cube and complies with a Tier IV Designed Facility. It includes HUAWEI’s high-efficiency modular UPS, PAC and DCIM+ management system. All these advanced facilities are prefabricated in the factory and pretested before delivery. In addition, Huawei provides exclusive factory acceptance tests (FAT) to guarantee reliability and quality. Huawei’s solution takes the modular architecture and supports expansion in a stacking manner. This modular and scalable design allows it to deploy more racks in the same space and reduce the customer’s initial investment. Besides, the design PUE is lower than 1.5, which will bring tangible benefits to Cloud Exchange in the long run. Huawei’s solution also provides a customized facade with high-level finishing.

Mr. Eric added “Huawei will keep innovating on our DC solutions especially the prefab modular solution with the concept of one layer one DC, one rack one DC. Along the lines of electrical and electronic together with digital and AI technologies, we do believe the prefab modular solution is going to be well accepted by our clients. we also believe this solution is going to benefit businesses more because it enables: capacity follows network planning; Investment follows business growth”.