MDXi Appolonia datacenter in Ghana set for commissioning – Opeke

• To expand the company’s footprint in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

West Africa’s leading commercial data center provider, MDXi, is set to commission its new Appolonia Datacenter in Ghana this month.

MDXI had received Tier III Certification on the Design Documents from Uptime Institute, The Global Data Center Certifying Authority.

The CEO, Funke Opeke disclosed this while speaking at #NerdsUnite2021, a flagship programme of MainOne, that later this month, they will commission the Appolonia datacentre in Ghana, as well as expand the company’s footprint in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

Opeke, citing the business climate since the Pandemic started, said they (MainOne) have witnessed Internet capacity requirements grow at the fastest rate ever in the region hence the company doubled its network capacity during the past 12 months.

“Our data center footprint is growing under our MDXi brand and before the end of the year, we will have more than 5 MW of power deployed in Lekki when our Lekki II data center is commissioned. Later this month, we will commission the Appolonia data center in Ghana, and in addition further expand our footprint in Abidjan.

“Last year at Nerd’s Unite, we launched Microsoft Azure Stack services in Nigeria, in partnership with Microsoft and HPE and we have continued to grow that platform to deploy Cloud solutions for Fintechs, Oil & Gas, Power and Value Added Services providers that service a lot of eyeballs in Nigeria and will likewise launch Azure Stack services in Ghana this month.

The 104-rack facility extends MainOne’s MDXi’s footprint into Ghana to deliver best-in-class data center uptime and operational performance to meet the rapidly growing demand for Colocation, Managed Hosting and Cloud services in Ghana.

Upon completion, the facility will be operated with the same operational standards currently in place at MDXi’s premier Data Center in Lagos, Nigeria which is certified to both the Tier Certification of Design Documents (TCDD) and Tier Certification of Constructed Facility (TCCF).

Earlier, the Chief Operating Officer, MDXi, Mr. Gbenga Adegbiji, explained that “The Appolonia datacenter has been designed to meet rigorous standards in order to deliver highly secure and reliable infrastructure with multiple layers of redundancy on all critical electrical and mechanical components. This guarantees continuous access/uptime to hosted critical applications and data, improving the overall operational efficiency and profitability of our customers. We have engaged leading MEP and EPC contractors, Sterling & Wilson who are handling the modular mechanical and electrical units, while a team of local partners led by Incept Architectural Consults (IAC) are responsible for the civil, structural, construction and site works.

On his part, the Acting Country Manager, of MainOne Ghana, Emmanuel Kwarteng, stated that the Appolonia datacenter further consolidates the company’s investment in infrastructure to enable West Africa’s Digital Economy.

Kwarteng noted that the data center will provide the required infrastructural support for the digital transformation of businesses in Ghana without having to invest scarce Capital and Human resources to build their own infrastructure, thus improving business efficiency and profitability.

He added: “it is important that we have available the infrastructure required to establish, enhance and sustain effective business performance in today’s global digital economy. Outsourcing of Data Center and Connectivity services to a reputable provider like MDXi ensures businesses can adopt more cost-effective models of consuming technology to allow increased focus of valuable company resources to drive business development and growth”.

Uptime Institute Chief Technology Officer, Christopher Brown also lauded MDXi on the award of the Tier III Certification of Design documents for the Appolonia Data Center in Ghana.

“The certification clearly demonstrates MDXi’s commitment to its customers and unwavering focus on not only designing but building a world class facility that meets the most demanding requirements. This is indeed a significant step in the Tier Classification process, and we look forward to working with them in achieving other certification milestones,” Brown said.