Source: The 10 Most Admired Data Center Solution Providers by Insights Success
The data center industry continues to see explosive growth, driven by an increase in overall Internet traffic and businesses that are increasingly migrating towards internal IT systems to third party data center providers. Many times, various companies build their own data center, but it consumes time and resources. So, when organizations want to optimize their resources in a different way and know they should not be investing in a data center, then they are depended on data center service providers, which is far more cost effective and easier to use rather than setting up a personal data center. With innovative and groundbreaking data center solutions, enters West Africa based Rack Centre, a State-of-the-Art, Tier III Constructed Facility Certified Data Centre offering Carrier Neutral Colocation Services without one second of downtime in over four years of live operations.
Pioneer in Colocation Data Center
Headquartered in Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos, Rack Centre was established in 2012. Rack Centre is a carrier neutral colocation data centre facility. It was founded by Jagal, a highly respected Nigerian conglomerate holding that operates leading energy businesses and manages a diverse portfolio of investments. Jagal had the vision of the demand for world-class hosting services in Africa. Rack Centre went live in October 2013, and was the First and Only carrier neutral data centre in Africa to Achieve Uptime Institute Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility (TCCF). The Data Centre is in Lagos, Nigeria and is scalable to 6,000 sqm (3000 racks) of energy efficient and secure data centre space, hosting over 27 Telcos, carrier providers, ISPs and directly connected to five undersea cables, with access to local loop, backhaul and global submarine network capacity, across the Atlantic and Indian ocean. Every country on the Atlantic coast of Africa is directly connected to Rack Centre by an undersea cable.
The Dynamic Leader
Ayotunde Coker, Managing Director of Rack Centre is a business focused and innovative technologist with over 30 years’ experience in the ICT Industry, and a track record of building and transforming businesses. He has been at the centre of building the Rack Centre since July 2014 and is skilled at leading large, multi-national, multi-location teams to design, build, restructure, or manage complex technology operations in order to improve and service businesses.
He has had international experience across Europe, USA, Asia and Africa as a consultant at Cap Gemini. Consulting with global blue chip organisations, such as, ABN Amro Bank, UBS, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch.He was Digital Services Director for Egg Bank, held the position of Global Applications Director at BP the global oil and gas major, and prior to returning to Nigeria in 2009, was Chief Technology Officer for the United Kingdom Criminal Justice System, and CIO, UK Ministry of Justice. He was Chair of the UK Enterprise IT Architecture Board.
He returned to Nigeria in 2009, as the Group CIO of Access Bank PLC where he played a key role in the bank’s transformation to a top tier bank in multiple countries in Africa. He has served as the MD/CEO of Emerging Markets Payments, West Africa. He has played the central role in building Rack Centre into a globally recognised and leading African data centre brand.
Providing Unique and Capable Services and Solutions
In 2014, Rack Centre was the first to be Tier III Design Certified by the Uptime Institute and was the first and only carrier neutral facility in Africa to achieve the Tier III Constructed Facility Certification in April 2017. Rack Centre proffers colocation, private and public cloud facilities to the African market place. The company also offers value added services such as zero downtime migration, professional services and a comprehensive cloud exchange of local and international cloud platforms called CloudonGroundTM.
The X Factor
The unique factor that sets apart Rack Centre from its competitors is that they offer the highest quality hosting in Sub Sahara Africa. It is the only Tier III Constructed Certified, and with all undersea cables directly connected, and over 27 local carriers, and other pan Africa wholesale providers, it is the most connected Tier III data centre in Africa. The CloudonGroundTM offering provides a comprehensive local cloud exchange and ecosystem and content distribution networks. They provide professional services, migration services and business continuity as a service to their clients.
Serving Clients with State of the Art Facilities
Rack Centre’s customers have enjoyed 100% uptime since launch. Corporates that host their data in Rack Centre are able to save up to 30% of network and interconnect costs by locating in Rack Centre. The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria and regional ECOWAS Exchange point hosted at Rack Centre, ensure that all local and regional Internet transactions (business applications and Fintech) are localised, with exceptional performance and great customer experience; bringing financial inclusion to Africa. The regional exchange transforms direct peering across a region with a population of 390m. Pan African businesses hosted in Rack Centre have a ready framework for interconnecting and integrating their businesses across Africa. Cloud services deployed at Rack Centre seamlessly support pan Africa businesses.
Assurance of Quality
With IXPN at Rack Centre, local ISP’s and telecom carriers switch data traffic more quickly and at a faster speed. Data transactions are conducted in Nigeria, reducing the requirement for international data traffic and high transit costs. Clients have the flexibility to implement information systems in the way they choose, and easily make changes as needed, whether scaling systems or changing how they interconnect with ISPs or carriers. Rack Centre has won numerous global, African and Nigerian awards over the years. It was the first African company to win the UK Data Centre Dynamics award in 2015, the first to be shortlisted in multiple categories over three consecutive years, and the first African company to be runners up at the Data Centre Solutions awards in the UK. It has once again been shortlisted as a finalist in two categories of the Data Centre Solutions Awards.
Picture of the Bright Future
The data, cloud and content world is increasing exponentially. Rack Centre has put in place some compelling data rich, carrier dense and content distribution ecosystem for the future. They intend to create the Nigerian hyper scale pan Africa company of the future. When it comes to the future of data centers, the trend is pointing towards the cloud, software, and infrastructure as a service. However, the trend is not new, but the company believes, it is on the edge of the breakthrough.
