Watch: A look at Teraco’s epic new Isando data centre

Teraco will complete work on the first phase of a massive new expansion to its data centre campus in Isando, east of Johannesburg, by the middle of the year and is looking to complete a second phase by year-end.

The company, founded 12 years ago in Cape Town, has emerged as the largest data centre operator in Africa – home to 250 telecommunications operators as well as a range of streaming content providers, and increasingly cloud players and South African corporate enterprises.

The expansion will take the total IT load at the campus to 40MW – a total of about 80MW of power from the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality – offering 20 000sq m of white space for server and infrastructure hosting, CEO Jan Hnizdo said in a podcast interview with TechCentral.

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The latest round of expansion will bring Teraco’s total investment in data centres to date to about R2-billion, with the Isando site by far its largest. It also operates a data centre further east, in Bredell on the East Rand, as well as smaller facilities in Cape Town and Durban.

Phase 1 of Joburg 3 (as the latest Isando expansion has been dubbed) consists of 9MW of IT power or 18MW of load from the council, along with 4 000sq m of white space with four big server halls. Phase 2 will double that capacity, Hnizdo said.

The company is already eyeing the next phase of expansion, having acquired another site adjacent to the Isando campus. This one may be the last in the area, though, as power supply is expected to become constrained. It is also looking to build another data centre near to its existing 24MW facility in Bredell.

Watch the video above for a look at how the Joburg 3 expansion is progressing. And listen to the podcast interview with Jan Hnizdo for more on the expansion as well as how Hnizdo sees the market developing in the coming years and how Teraco is coping with constant load shedding.  — (c) 2020 NewsCentral Media