Technology

Group of investors starts giving services at Mombasa data centre

data

Investors plan to pump Sh10 billion into rental data centres. photo | diana ngila

A group of Kenyan investors under the trade name icolo.io has started providing commercial services at its carrier neutral Data Centre in Mombasa.

Dubbed Mombasa One (MBA1), the data centre which stared operating in September sits on a 2,400m² compound with an ability to provide up to 900KW of IT load for 226 rack servers.

The single storey structure is equipped with over 550m² of IT space with two separate dedicated Meet-Me rooms for the local network providers to bring diverse routes into the site.

Last year, icolo.io announced a plan to invest Sh10 billion over 10 years to construct rental data centres across the country.

The infrastructure project is set to more than double the current data hosting capacity in the country (starting with Mombasa and Nairobi), which stands at 500 data centres, against a growing demand.

Mr Cherickel said the construction of Nairobi One (NBO1) located in Karen, has already started and would be ready for business next November.

MBA1 has a full time staff with engineers working on a 24 -hour shift basis, 365 days of the year. Customers receive premium colocation services for up to 52 U racks, metered power, bespoke data centre power solutions, 1KWh to 12KWh per rack, caging and private customer suites.

Mr Cherickel said MBA1 is designed and built with concurrent maintainability to achieve commitment of 99.999 per cent uptime.

It will also have significant connectivity to the sub-sea cable system infrastructure and will become a core node for all terrestrial networks reaching out into the rest of East and Central Africa.

“By opening our site in Mombasa, Kenyan enterprises have an opportunity to build a real disaster recovery location to be compliant with distance requirements of global business continuity practices,” he said.