The new IBM Cloud Data Centre has the ability to run and manage SAP applications and workloads in the cloud and underscores IBM’s growing cloud footprint, which now includes 46 cloud data centres across six continents.
"We’re working to drive cloud adoption that best leverages a customer’s existing IT investments,” said Hamilton Ratshefola, IBM country general manager in South Africa. “Our new Cloud Data Centre gives customers a local onramp to IBM Cloud services including moving mission critical SAP workloads to the cloud with ease. It also gives customers the added flexibility of keeping data within country which is a key differentiator for IBM.”
The IBM Cloud Data Centre will provide SAP enterprise customers in South Africa and Africa with access to IBM’s global network of Cloud Data Centres and services expertise. This will enable businesses to run critical applications on the cloud, providing access to a broad array of services for building in-country cloud solutions, while offering faster network speeds to improve performance and reach end users even faster.
“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,” said Vuyani Jarana, chief officer of Vodacom Business. “CIO’s are looking to gain efficiencies and cut cost 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 cloud services to large and multinational enterprises."
Bringing together Vodacom’s network and African footprint, Gijima’s SAP enterprise expertise and IBM’s cloud platforms will create a powerhouse in cloud services, resolving data latency and in-country regulatory issues through the protection of data in-country and potentially also offset data networking costs. Gijima and Vodacom will both resell IBM’s Cloud Managed Services to the SAP enterprise customer base in the region.