By: Dwight Links
On Monday, Paratus Group chief executive Schalk Erasmus officially unveiled the Armada Data Center about 10 km outside Windhoek on the way to Okahandja. The Paratus telecommunications company owns the data centre.
“This is a carrier-neutral site for telecommunications needs – meaning any other carrier can host a client at this site,” Erasmus said.
Paratus adds that the data centre helps the country have the infrastructure to enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The site’s official opening was on 4 August, and the media saw it on 8 August.
“It will offer the Namibian business sector the complete solution of resilient infrastructure and hosting services that are complemented by complete connectivity freedom and the opportunity to compete at world-class levels,” Erasmus said.
The site boasts a high availability hosted environment, with resilience at each infrastructure level, from power to cooling needs to carrier interconnects to extremely low latency. Another benefit that the data centre will provide is that it removes the need for businesses to build their own facilities to house and protect their data.
For the business reason the site was built for, Erasmus says the Paratus data centre is the safest and most secure environment for any business’ most precious asset, data.
“The resilience and protection we offer at this site is unmatched in the country, with this being the archetype in the country for modern technology at work,” Erasmus said.
One of the data centre’s consultants, Nils Gerstle from the Collaboretix Group, who was part of the experts at the media presentation, said that efficiency was key in constructing the centre.
“Armada was designed to mitigate environmental impacts. Trees that needed to be uprooted during construction of the data centre have been replanted, with a large duck pond being installed on the campus site, and to help offset the carbon footprint of the centre,” Gerstle said.
The offsetting of the carbon footprint is done with the main aim of not being reliant on fossil fuels when the data centre is operational.
“The data centre has a sophisticated set of renewable solar energy systems that have been incorporated that provides an approximate yield of 400kWp,” Gerstle noted. The facility’s roof is covered with solar panels to maximise the solar energy potential in Namibia.
Another benefit of the construction of the facility was the positioning that it enjoys. It is not close to any railway line, not very close to the major highway, nor is it susceptible to any noise from airports that host regular air traffic that can disturb the operationality of the Armada data centre.
Security is another important feature of the data centre whereby Paratus has considered every aspect of this facility.
“Armada has a 24-hour perimeter security, facility, computer room and cabinet controls that aim to prevent unauthorised entry into the data centre,” Erasmus said on the tour of the facility.
The group CEO added that additional security is provided within the facility’s inner layers, including battery backups, generator cages and data racks.
The power supply is carefully monitored along with the cooling systems that ensure optimal temperatures and humidity are maintained for all the equipment in the data centre. According to Erasmus, this is to mitigate data loss due to equipment failure caused by a lack of power or equipment suffering overheating.
Armada will become operational by the end of August or early September. However, the connection to the Equiano cable will only happen by early 2023. This is because the cable will be extended inland towards the data centre.
Erasmus adds that connection speeds to the greater web will be instantaneous. The initial funding for the centre came from investment from GIPF to the tune of N$ 128 million.
This was only the first phase completed. The second will see the further expansion of the services that includes the connectivity to the Equiano cable.
It took a total of 690 days to complete the construction of the site. The data centre will be able to link up with the Equiano cable that Paratus landed a few months back at the Swakopmund point.
The Equiano cable is a Google undersea cable that brings further connectivity to Namibia and the continent. The Equiano cable landed in South Africa on Monday as the last point on the West coast of Africa.
