Leading connectivity and data centre solutions provider in West Africa, MainOne, constructed West Africa’s largest Tier III+ Data centre company (MDXi) in 2015. Just recently, MainOne and data centre supplier Minkels – part of the publicly traded company Legrand (NYSE Euronext Paris: LR) – announced the second phase of the project.
Expansion
MainOne has announced plans to expand its data centre business, MDXi, into new territories across West Africa with a target to build new facilities in 3 new locations including Sagamu, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana and Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire in addition to an ongoing expansion of its Lekki Data Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. Over the next ten years, the company plans to build new data centres in each location and invest in infrastructure projects as part of a push to ramp up technology penetration in the region.
Digital transformation of West Africa
Reiterating the company’s commitment to the digital transformation of West Africa, Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke, highlighted the opportunities in the region and noted that ICT infrastructure investments will support rapid technology proliferation. “Given the size of its markets and status as home of some of Africa’s biggest economies, West Africa has a vantage opportunity to scale up infrastructure deployment to support digital transformation. Targeted investments in the region will bridge the gap in digital infrastructure and address the increasing reliance on data storage.” Minkels is also delighted with the second phase of the project. Christiaan van Terheijden, CEO of Minkels says: “We are very proud to be part of the digital transformation of West Africa. MainOne is a company that knows how to drive Internet use across West Africa through investments in digital infrastructure required to grow the broadband ecosystem in the region. This benefits both inhabitants as well as Internet-enabled business models across the region.”
Largest Tier III facility and new TCCF certification
MainOne’s data centre subsidiary, MDXi, built the region’s largest Tier III facility in 2015 and recently commenced the second phase of the project, with additional investments to construct 300 additional racks in its Lekki facility. Focused on developing a data centre ecosystem spanning facilities across West Africa, the company plans to launch its new Tier III data centre project in Sagamu in 2019, Accra, Ghana in 2019 and Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire in 2020. MDXi just received its Tier III Constructed Facility certification (TCCF) from the Uptime Institute in addition to the PCI-DSS certification which certifies the Data centre to process payment card information, the SAP Infrastructure Services license which certifies the Data Centre as ideal for running SAP applications and infrastructure, and ISO 27001 and 9001 certifications.
These certifications demonstrate MDXi’s compliance to globally accepted standards on high availability, commitment towards the security and protection of the information assets of the company and its customers, and provides assurance of the quality of the Data Centre’s infrastructure and ability to react to disruptions due to unplanned activities.