Vodacom has announced that it will be hosting the fully redundant IBM Cloud Managed Services (CMS) delivery centre for Africa in its Midrand and Roslyn data centres.
This is the first IBM Cloud centre to be implemented in the Middle East and Africa region, and the first facility in the South African market to provide a CMS offering for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), as well as SAP-certified Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Vodacom will be partnering with IBM to offer this Enterprise Managed Cloud Solution directly to enterprise and multinational markets in South Africa and across the continent. The initiative will see Vodacom expanding its cloud and hosting portfolio, and underscores Vodacom's commitment to delivering enterprise-grade solutions throughout Africa.
Big benefits for business
Corporate customers, large and small, will benefit from significant savings in investment costs and skills as the partnership with IBM will deliver a solution centre offering the same world-class standards, skills and services as other IBM Cloud centres across the world.
The South African cloud service will be linked via Vodafone’s extensive Global IPVPN network to IBM’s global CMS platform in multiple locations in Europe.
The centre will provide SAP and other Enterprise Business Applications customers across various industries in South Africa and throughout the continent with access to a robust enterprise-grade network and cloud platform integrated into IBM’s global cloud offering, leveraging IBM’s worldwide reach and expertise.
This will enable businesses to run critical applications in the cloud with integrated access to a broad array of services like enterprise mobility, security and IOT, while offering faster network speeds and improved performance and reach to its end users.
Expanding across Africa
Vuyani Jarana, Chief Officer Vodacom Business, says: 'The increase of enterprise cloud computing on the continent is being driven by large enterprise and multinational organisations expanding their presence and IT requirements across Africa.
'CIOs are looking to gain efficiencies and cut costs by moving more of their IT infrastructure, applications and processes into the cloud. Vodacom’s extensive Fixed and Mobile network infrastructure, pan-African and global footprint and its investment in data centre infrastructure provides the ideal platform and environment to deliver a Managed Cloud Solution to large and multinational enterprises.
'The partnership with IBM will bring IBM’s leading Managed Cloud platform to the African continent enabling enterprises to accelerate their move to cloud-based IT. This partnership sees both organisations delivering an industrial-scale cloud platform that will meet the computing demands of very large enterprises.
'This partnership removes any doubt as to whether South Africa has the capability to provide a managed cloud service to very large enterprises like big retailers and financial institutions. Vodacom is committed to delivering enterprise-grade cloud solutions and this partnership with IBM delivers on that scale and will position Vodacom Business as a leader in total IT solutions across the Continent.'
