April 30, 2019

SEACOM provides direct connectivity for African businesses through Microsoft data centres in South Africa

SEACOM, the leading Pan-African Internet and connectivity service provider, now offers direct connections into public cloud networks and data centres located in South Africa. This follows the highly anticipated launch of the enterprise-grade Microsoft data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town on 6 March. The centres are Microsoft’s first-ever cloud regions in Africa.

SEACOM’s solution delivers direct, high-speed, dedicated and secure connectivity to the Azure cloud data centres via SEACOM’s resilient East and Southern African network.

SEACOM’s subsea cable system, which connects East Africa to South Africa, Europe & Asia, offers a fibre express route that carries terabytes of capacity, with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps. In addition, SEACOM’s recent acquisition of FibreCo’s national network in South Africa allows SEACOM to extend this capability across the country direct into Microsoft data centres and other similar facilities.

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"Direct, high-speed, dedicated and secure connectivity to the Azure cloud data centres"

In 2009, SEACOM first brought its high-speed Internet connectivity directly to Africa, opening the continent to technological advancements and opportunities. In 2016, SEACOM upscaled its commitment to Africa, offering business customers direct high-speed, reliable Internet connectivity and cloud-based business solutions.

Through years of experience with global cloud providers such as Microsoft, SEACOM has provided solutions to organisations intent on migrating aspects of their business to the cloud. One example is SEACOM’s Azure ExpressRoute service which, together with Microsoft, enables SEACOM customers to extend their on-premises networks into the cloud without using the public Internet. Until the opening of dedicated Azure data centres in South Africa, Azure ExpressRoute only connected to data centres outside the African continent.

The opportunity for African businesses to leverage SEACOM’s CloudWorx services to connect directly and reliably to the local Microsoft data centres will enable more companies on the continent to embrace the cloud in a compliant manner, and enhance their own digital transformation. In addition to laying the foundation for explorations of artificial intelligence and edge computing inyears to come, in the near future, locally-delivered Azure cloud services will be joined by popular Office 365 and Dynamics 365.