The Digital Delta Data Centre- A new home for your data
On Thursday 11 March 2021 we officially launched the Digital Delta Data Centre during a ground breaking ceremony held at the Botswana Innovation Hub Science and Technology Park in Block 8, Gaborone. The event was officiated by our Minister of Transport & Communications Hon Thulagano Segokgo.
In his keynote address the minister indicated that Data Centres are the brains of businesses in this digital era and BoFiNet will invest over P100 million in the development of this magnificent Data Centre, to ensure that we continue to secure and protect our data right here at home in line with Data Protection Act of 2018.
Hon Segokgo also posed to the audience “Director of Ceremony at the top of Government’s agenda is creation of employment. The construction and operation of this Data Centre is envisaged to create at least two hundred and seventy-three (273) jobs. We also anticipate creation of more jobs as the Data Centre become operational and more services are introduced such as cloud services, internet of Things (IoT) Software as a Service and many more”
BOFINET Board chair MS Pelani D.Siwawa Ndai stated “in 2014 BOFINET conducted a feasibility study to establish the viability of operating a Data Centre as a complimentary business to other initiatives undertaken at the time that were in line with our mandate of driving connectivity and contributing to economic growth” She further went to state that this study was revisited in 2019 and that work culminated in a resolution that paved way for the construction of a Data Centre facility.
In his project update delivery BOFINET CEO Mabua Mabua informed the audience that the Data Centre is a 1,000 square metres Tier III data centre that will be accredited by Uptime Institute (An international body that accredits data centres world-wide). Uptime Institute accredits the Data Centre for the Design (which has passed), the construction and the operations which is done regularly (obviously that has to guarantee the highest level of service availability). The space is big enough to house 400 racks, in laymans terms, equal to a residential plot size of 40m by 25m.
The Data Centre will host cloud-services and other related services, to give Botswana customers and some in neighbour countries the best customer experience, by bringing content closest to them.
We will be offering the following products and/or services such as;
1. Rack space of different sizes
2. Remote Hands
- On demand, 24/7* support, with SLA
- Basic low-level technical assistance:
3. Power allowance
- Separate A & B power feeds
4. Interconnects
- Flexible & scalable Fibre, UTP, STP, coax & PSTN
- To multiple carriers & ISPs + direct access to business partners
5. Cloud Services
- Software as a Service
- Platform as a Service
- Serverless
6. Infrastructure as a Service “We are looking at completing this facility, ready for service in the 2021/22 financial year and We have already received reservations for the space and services and as such reminding you to indicate your needs because, even-though for Botswana it is a big facility, the space is limited based on the interest so far” Mabua concluded.