Paratus to Open Brand-New Data Centre in Zambia

Paratus Group has announced that its brand-new data centre will open in Lusaka, Zambia on 1 October 2021.

The new data centre in the East African country will offer colocation services – 24/7 connections for local and multinational businesses, together with a sophisticated range of digital and aligned services.

Colocation

Customers are given the option to rent space within the data centre for their equipment and servers. Businesses can choose from a range of options, including dedicated, shared, caged, and private suite options.

The benefits of using colocation services include unlimited 24/7 physical access to equipment and the facility. If a customer is not able to physically make it to the facility, the Paratus Zambia DC team will offer their remote hands service which enables the DC team to perform any immediate functions on the customer’s behalf.

In terms of overall maintenance, the data centre is designed with optimal resilience to allow for concurrent maintainability. It is also fitted with redundant systems ranging from power, cooling and connectivity with each running system on a primary and alternate to achieve this.

This essentially means each one works concurrently to ensure maximum availability and that the customer’s systems are constantly online. Colocation is especially advantageous to smaller business owners who do not necessarily have the capital to invest in infrastructure similar to a data centre.

Colocation means they can migrate to the data centre and have access to all these significant services and minimize some of the risks and costs that come with onsite data maintenance.

Power and Connectivity

If a company loses its connectivity or power to their critical equipment and systems, it can lead to an unfortunate loss of productivity and other far-reaching effects such as loss of business, Paratus says in a statement released on Tuesday. The benefit of moving offsite and migrating to one of the Paratus Data Centres is that the facility guarantees uninterrupted power and connectivity.

It runs at a 1-megawatt power capacity with two dedicated generators, and this ensures uninterrupted power. Each on-site data hall has connectivity resilience, and each cabinet has dual UPS feeds which deliver up to 3.5kVA.

It is advantageous to have UPS systems in place as this allows for backup power to be activated in case there is a utility power outage. However, having a dual UPS feed is more beneficial, as this means that there are two separate sets of these components always operating independently, so if the one cuts out, the other one automatically starts operating.

Although Paratus operates its own resilient 100G fibre network that interconnects the data centre to the rest of the world, the Paratus Data Centre is carrier neutral. This means that the client has more choice in connectivity options and has the freedom to connect to the facility using a solutions’ partner that works for them.

This Paratus Zambia state-of-the-art data centre was scheduled originally to open in July but was delayed due to regional restrictions and the rise in Covid-infections in the SADC region.

“With the slight delay in opening our Data Center, we now have the opportunity and time to rigorously test all our systems and give our customers extra assurance that we are providing them with the best hosting environment in the country,” says Marius van Vuuren, MD of Paratus Zambia.

“The opening of the data centre will take place on 1 October 2021 from 9 am – 4 pm. This is a great achievement, not only for Paratus, but for Zambia as well, and we hope that many will be able to join in on the exciting activities on the day.”