Africa Data Centres joins forces with Nigeria's top internet exchange point

Africa Data Centres, the largest network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities in Africa, and part of the Cassava Technologies group, has taken a significant step forward in its widescale expansion into Africa by joining forces with Nigeria's principle internet exchange point: IXPN.

"IXPN is unquestionably the leading internet exchange point in Nigeria and provides Africa Data Centres with the connectivity it needs to give customers market-leading service," says Dr Angus Hay – Africa Data Centres group executive: IT & partnerships.

"The partnership will enable Nigerian entities to migrate their systems into a world-class data centre with total confidence, knowing they will have access to a highly available, secure, and connected ecosystem of strategic partners."

In the digital economy, enterprises are migrating to the cloud and internet-centric technology, but find the expenses associated with operating their infrastructure, including backup generators and physical security, too high. Shared data centre resources reduce the total cost of ownership while increasing availability and connectivity and bringing new opportunities to partner and innovate.

"Organisations are moving away from their on-premises equipment to promote greater business agility and scalability. To do this, they need a trusted specialist provider to house their systems but, as well as a colocation provider, who can assume the role of a trusted partner, and provide excellent local and international connectivity," adds Hay.

Effective cloud services cannot be implemented without stable Internet access and robust, reliable data centres. This is the essence of the partnership between Africa Data Centres and IXPN – they bring internet peering to the table, and the data centre provider delivers the local ecosystem for customers.

IXPN, Nigeria's leading internet exchange provider, allows local content and service providers to connect directly for the exchange of local internet traffic rather than having their data travel long distances. They are increasing the speed with which end users can access online resources by bringing the content closer to the customer, resulting in significant improvements in business efficiency.

In a statement, IXPN Chief Executive Officer Muhammed Rudman expressed delight in the partnership with Africa Data Centres, saying: "We are excited to partner with Africa Data Centres towards providing an additional point of presence to our members within the new Eko Atlantic City."

"Our partnership with Africa Data Centres provides our members with access to more peering facilities, particularly in Lagos, which will significantly improve connection performance, lower bandwidth costs, and lower latency for Nigerian internet traffic, " he concluded.