Trends in Cloud, Colocation & Peering in Africa
*Research firms have made predictions that the global colocation market will grow to more than US$50 billion by 2020, a CAGR of over 12% from 2015 to 2020. A significant portion of this demand is being driven by the enterprise, IT and telecommunications sectors.
The key trends we forecast will affect the colocation market in Africa - and in some cases globally:
• Content is moving closer to the edge
**2017 Research reports state that content providers such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Netflix are seeking ways to more deeply connect with end users in order to improve overall user experience. They are spreading out to achieve global coverage, and instead of placing physical servers in various locations throughout the world, these providers are using an edge computing network to push data, applications and services to devices at the edge of networks in order to lower transmission costs, reduce latency and improve the user experience. Many have entered the African market at key interconnection hubs where the infrastructure is well established and robust.
• Cloud & direct connect are essential
Enterprises in Africa have in the last 18 months started accelerating their adoption of cloud and are now actively seeking migration opportunities. Many are already using public clouds for data storage. These enterprises are also requiring direct connections (versus connecting through public networks) to the Cloud for improved performance and security. Direct connect to the cloud is now one of a carrier's / colocation provider’s most valuable offerings.
• Access to diverse networks & peering
***Vendor neutral colocation offers a wide choice of interconnection options to many networks. The value of a colocation provider’s network density, however, can be evaluated by two things: the total number of carriers present in the data centre, and the amount of traffic exchanged. But while carrier connections are significant, peering is the essential component.
• The Rise of the Digital Edge
As technologies like Cloud disrupt the ICT landscape and force the CIO to take a view on the digitisation of the enterprise, the relevance of protecting that strategy by: de-risking the ownership of data centres, building flexibility around data centre technology, bedding down security and developing an interconnected architecture, become more relevant than ever.
references:
* Allied Market Research 2016, Markets & Markets 2016, Xalam Analytics 2015
** TeleGeography 2017
*** Teraco Data Environments 2017
