Shiraz Mahomed Hamish Erskine iConnect Datacenter
KWAZULU-NATAL could become the cloud computing hub of the continent if Dube TradePort has its way.
The provincial government agency, which is in charge of developing the land, cargo facilities and AgriZone around King Shaka International Airport, has set its sights on supporting the development of the ICT (information and communication technology) sector in KZN and the nascent cloud computing business.
Hamish Erskine, Dube TradePort’s ICT executive, said the company had invested more than R100 million in its ICT infrastructure, which included two data centres and laying broadband fibre optic cable across the site.
“We’ve gone beyond the original ‘cyberport’ concept for the TradePort that we had years back in the planning stage.
“Originally the IT infrastructure was meant to support the cargo terminal and trade related businesses…,” he said.
“However, with the rapid advancement in ICT, we realised we had to adapt our plans to also open up opportunities for the development of the ICT.
“In addition to investing in two data centres at Dube TradePort, we’ve also secured what’s called an ECS licence from the Independent Communications Authority of SA. Essentially, the licence has allowed us to buy bandwidth in bulk from several of the major telecommunication providers such as Neotel, Telkom, Vodacom and even the city of Durban’s own MetroConnect service.
“This means we can then provide voice and data services at significantly lower rates to businesses operating within the TradePort. We’ve launched the service called Dube iConnect and are working with various resellers like Business Connection and Dimension Data,” said Erskine.
He said already Dube TradePort was servicing 34 companies and 400 different users operating from its facilities.
The service was limited to the TradePort site, but also meant that all calls made within the Dube TradePort were free. This excluded the airport terminal, which was operated by the Airports Company South Africa.
Erskine said: “With this initiative we are looking to use ICT to enhance business opportunities and the cost of doing business on site going into the future… It won’t be just the freight forwarders and trade-related business based here that will have access to these services, but any business operating out of Dube TradePort – from companies based at the future office blocks that will go up at Dube City, to the planned hotels and other facilities.
“They will all have access to lower-cost ICT and related other services.”
Advantage
He said the data centres had “level 2” status, but Dube TradePort wanted to increase this to “level 4” to offer world-class data storage services to business.
“Data centres and cloud computing are becoming a big thing globally and we want to take advantage of the opportunities it provides in spurring economic development and job creation. Dube iConnect includes a high-end computing and storage platform that is available to the Dube TradePort community of users for a fee that is structured according to the number of CPUs and amount of memory and storage required,” he said.
According to ICT research firm World Wide Worx, large organisations in SA are increasingly adopting cloud computing as they realise it does not always pay to own their own information technology systems. The concept of accessing processing power, data storage facilities or software on tap has been around for years.
But a lack of affordable bandwidth and experienced service providers have made it a potentially risky business.
World Wide Worx reported that SA’s bandwidth boom had already allowed 46 percent of large local businesses to adopt some form of cloud computing.
It said that by 2013 more than half would have taken the plunge.
“While companies are starting to embrace the technology, there is definitely no herd mentality around cloud computing, which is a positive indicator,” said World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck.
“Cloud computing has massive advantages as it removes the cost of buying, installing, maintaining and upgrading hardware and software.
“It also lets companies pay for services on demand and creates economies of scale if a third-party specialist handles the equipment for them,” he said.
