Microsoft certifies MDXI as Gold Data Centre - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Full-scale data centre provider in West Africa, MDXI, has been certified as the Gold Data Centre by Microsoft which strengthens its position as one of the leading Cloud Services providers in Africa, reports ITREALMS.

This, ITREALMS gathered, demonstrated 'best-in-class' capability to meet Microsoft's customers' needs, whereas the Gold Data Centre is the highest partnership level with Microsoft in Data Centre Competencies for Cloud Productivity.

Disclosing this, Gbenga Adegbiji, General Manager, MDXI told ITREALMS that attaining Gold Partner status is an important step for MDXI in its drive towards supporting local companies face issues on digital transformation, particularly in relation to their data centre and computing platform strategies.

"To obtain the certification, MDXI has demonstrated the highest commitment to the integration of the latest Microsoft products, with proven expertise to help costumers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft platforms," he asserted.

Stressing that the Gold Competency provides MDXI with a competitive advantage that helps us offer our customers the most relevant Microsoft solutions in the market. With this competency, MDXI is accredited as a partner to transform data centres into more flexible, scalable, and cost effective solutions using Microsoft Azure Cloud and hybrid solutions. This will enable us deliver greater value to our customers with best-in-class staff that have been subject to rigorous exams, proven implementation and satisfaction references auditable,” says Gbenga Adegbiji, General Manager, MDXI.

The new milestone proves MDXI’s commitment to enabling digital transformation for its customers through constant improvement in delivering only the best services with competency levels including Silver Cloud Platform; Silver Data Centre; Silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions; and Silver Application Development competencies.

In a similar vein, German business software maker, SAP, has given MDXI a clean bill of health with its recertification as a provider of infrastructure services for its cloud solutions. This recertification endorses the ability of the company to deliver high-quality cloud and infrastructure operations services for customers running SAP solutions and confirms MDXI can continue to host and manage SAP applications using the company’s enterprise cloud platforms.

As a SAP-certified provider of hosting services, MDXI offers cost-effective yet reliable delivery models for mission-critical applications for customers of SAP.

SAP customers that rely on MainOne’s data centre for hosting services are empowered to focus on the business value of their solutions and benefit from reduced operational expenses that a commercial data centre provides.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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MDXI achieves TCCF becomes most certified data center in Nigeria - ITREALMS Online

ITREALMS:

MDXI’s 600 rack facility in Lekki is the premier commercial Data Center in West Africa built to meet the rapidly growing demand for colocation, managed hosting and cloud services within the region, reports ITRealms.

MDXI is MainOne’s  data centre subsidiary, which ITRealms reported, recently received its Tier III Constructed Facility certification (TCCF) from the Uptime Institute.

With this new milestone, MDXI becomes the leading Data center in West Africa with the top 5 certifications in the industry, being the Tier III Constructed Facility certification, TCCF, the PCI-DSS certification which certifies the Data center to process payment card information, the SAP Infrastructure Services license which certifies the Data Center as ideal for running SAP applications and infrastructure, and ISO 27001 and 9001 certifications.

This TCCF certification is awarded by the Uptime Institute as a performance-based evaluation of a data centre’s concurrently maintainable site infrastructure. Tier Certification of Constructed Facility is a progression from Tier Certification of Design Documents (TCDD) and goes beyond the review of paper designs to rigorous on-site testing to root out discrepancies between the actual installation and design.

The multiple certifications of MainOne’s MDXI demonstrate compliance to globally accepted standards on high availability, commitment towards the security and protection of the information assets of the company and its customers, and provides assurance of the quality of the Data Centre’s infrastructure and ability to react to disruptions due to unplanned activities.

MDXI’s 600 rack facility in Lekki is the premier commercial Data Center in West Africa built to meet the rapidly growing demand for Colocation, Managed Hosting and Cloud services within the region. General Manager of MDXI, Gbenga Adegbiji announced that the certification further validates the company’s investment in critical infrastructure to grow West Africa’s Digital Economy.

“With the increased recognition of Africa as home of fast growing economies, it is important that we have the infrastructure required to establish, enhance and sustain effective business performance in today’s global digital economy. Outsourcing of Data Center services to a reputable provider such as MDXI ensures businesses can adopt more cost effective models of consuming technology to allow increased focus on business development and growth. As we build a data centre ecosystem spanning facilities across West Africa, we plan to launch new Tier III data centres in Sagamu, by Q4 2018, Ghana in 2019 and Cote I’voire in 2020.”

On presentation of the Tier III Constructed Facility certification (TCCF) award, President of Uptime Institute, Lee Kirby said “We congratulate MainOne’s Data Centre Company, MDXI on receiving their Tier III Constructed Facility Certification Documents. This is indeed a significant step for the region and we look forward to working with them as they build multiple facilities across West Africa”.

MDXI is West Africa’s largest full scale data centre provider offering colocation, interconnection and cloud services to OTTs and major network, content and financial providers, as well as access to multiple Internet exchange points in Nigeria, Ghana, Amsterdam, and London.

Nenye Dom/GEE


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MDXI, Avanti Group partner on GES management

ITREALMS:

The MDXI data centre has partnered with Avanti Communications Group Plc, a leading British satellite operator, to host and manage the satellite operator’s in-country Gateway Earth Station (GES), reports ITRealms.

MDXI, ITRealms gathered, is a subsidiary of MainOne, with this partnership delivers the commissioning of Avanti’s first GES in West Africa, hosted at MDXI’s satellite farm in Lagos.

The project, ITRealms also reports, has seen Avanti invest up to USD 20 million in the Nigerian Gateway, will ensure data from the HYLAS 4 Ka-band satellite is delivered efficiently in-country and interconnected with other networks.

The HYLAS 4 Ka-band satellite will deliver  High Throughput Satellite (HTS) connectivity to complement the country’s existing fibre-optic networks, ensuring access is available to enable high-speed internet everywhere, even to the most remote and rural locations.

Applications that will be supported by this Avanti’s 3rd Ka-band satellite include satellite broadband services for homes and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), rural schools, large enterprises and government agencies and cellular backhaul for 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks. Avanti already has an established track record deploying such services via existing satellites across East and Southern Africa as well across Europe and the Middle East.

Avanti’s efforts in Nigeria will also include the deployment of its Every Community Online (ECO) initiative, with built-in Wi-Fi hotpots in schools, communities and government agencies, especially in the underserved and remote parts of the country where power availability and connectivity services remain a challenge. In addition, the satellite operator will take advantage of MainOne’s extensive coverage to extend its market reach across nine countries in West Africa.

Avanti’s technology has been proven to deliver sustainable digital inclusion by delivering terrestrial-quality, affordable and superfast satellite broadband services. Given the satellite’s footprint across Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, the services provided will greatly enhance eGovernment, eLearning, eCommerce, eHealth and eBanking services in rural areas among others. The new satellite will also offer support to oil and gas companies and enable coverage to remote Onshore, Offshore and Deep Offshore locations.

MDXI has been chosen to launch this project in West Africa based on its capability to deliver mission-critical data centre services and provide extensive interconnection with other operators, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the Nigerian Internet Exchange.

Speaking on the agreement, General Manager of MDXI, Gbenga Adegbiji said “As a carrier-neutral data centre enabling multiple local, regional and global networks in West Africa, Avanti’s choice of MDXI was inevitable. Working closely with Avanti, our engineers have already implemented a bespoke colocation solution to support the largest Gateway Earth Station in the region with uninterrupted power, connectivity and security to ensure 24/7/365 operations. While ineffective distribution of available bandwidth inland continues to hinder Nigeria’s broadband targets, our partnership with Avanti provides Nigeria the opportunity to make accelerated broadband expansion possible via satellite, to overcome last-mile gaps experienced in fibre infrastructure and enable the attainment of 30% broadband penetration target in the National Broadband Plan.”

Dave Bestwick, Chief Technology Officer at Avanti Communications, explained that the project would guarantee employment opportunities in ICT, engineering and communications to indigenes, as well as enable a huge leap towards economic growth in the ICT sector in Nigeria. “We are delighted to be partnering with MainOne and MDXI, to rollout satellite broadband services across Nigeria and West Africa. Avanti’s products will greatly complement MainOne’s existing network and provide reliable broadband connectivity to places within the region without terrestrial fibre connectivity. We look forward to expanding our collaboration in serving the people of Nigeria with market-leading products.”

Nenye Dom/GEE

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Data Center Infrastructure: MDXi to spend N2.5bn in 2018

ITRWALMS:

Acclaimed eco-friendly data center in West Africa, the MDXi has voted to spend the sum of N2.5 billion for the 2018 financial year on infrastructure development, reports ITRealms.

Disclosing this to ITRealms at the weekend, during a media tour of MDXi by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) in Lagos, the General Manager, MDXi, Mr. Gbenga Adegbiji, said, this would enable the fortification of the data centre and create room for expansion, mostly at its Lekki office.

Adegbiji also declared that MDXi has assumed the West Africa’s largest data center facility offering colocation, wholesale deployments, interconnection and cloud services.

The latest investment inflow, he said, would facilitate the anticipated expansion of the data centre to 600 racks from its current 300 racks; having invested some $35 million, about N12,635,000,000.00 till date, just as they planned to increase this to $40 million.

He further disclosed plans to create facilities in Sagamu, another suburb of Lagos, Accra in Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire in Abdijan as well as in Senegal, as Adegbiji showed the media practitioners some newly purchased rack cooling system ready for installation.

Currently, he said, MDXi is best in class infrastructure, built to TIA 942 and Uptime Institute Tier III standards, thus remain the West Africa’s only Tier III facility with Payment Card Industry-Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) in addition to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO 27001 and 9001) certifications.

“As a matter of fact, PCI-DSS ensures MDXi is the natural choice for financial institutions who must guarantee secure card infrastructure,” he declared, revealing that 90 per cent of financial institutions in the country are linked and hosted with MDXi.

He insisted that MDXi has been rated as the West Africa’s premier resilient, vendor-neutral data center; maintaining that it’s the only data center with direct connections to 4 submarine cables within 10 kilometer (km) namely the African Coast to Europe (ACE), West Africa Cable System (WACS), Glo 1, and MainOne.

Reiterating that MDXi is the most environmentally, friendly data centre in West Africa determined to save environment approximately 18 tonnes of Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO 2) and other dangerous gas emissions per annum, therefore, most Eco-friendly data centre in Nigeria.

“Policy-friendly and fully aligned with power sector privatization efforts in Nigeria,” he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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MDXi ‘Take a break’ campaign targets enterprise customers across West Africa

ITRealms:

The West Africa’s premier data center solutions provider, MDXi, a MainOne company has launched an advertising campaign aimed at reinforcing the company’s position as the data center provider of choice for enterprises in the region, tagged “Take a Break” reports ITRealms.

The campaign, ITRealms gathered, would increase awareness of the MDXi brand as the most interconnected and reliable West African data center company and urges C-level executives across the region to take a break from the rigors of managing in-house Information Technology (IT) and outsource their IT infrastructure needs to MDXi.

ITRealms reports that the campaign, which began in October in Nigeria and Ghana includes a redesign of the MDXi website and press adverts in numerous national publications, building on the company’s expansion efforts across Nigeria and West Africa.

MDXi General Manager, Gbenga Adegbiji, said, the campaign is expected to spotlight the company’s data center initiatives not only in Nigeria, but across West Africa including its Accra facility, a new Data Center in Sagamu, Ogun State Nigeria as well as planned development in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire.

“Unknown to local enterprises that outsource their data center needs off-shore, MDXi is home to numerous large multinationals that West Africans interact with daily online as we have raised the bar to provide world-class ICT and Data Center solutions, at par with similar facilities in Europe, Asia and America. Our Data Centers have undergone rigorous compliance audits to ensure we are able to provide same level of service locally that our international customers are used to” he said.

ITRealms recalls that MainOne’s MDXI has put Nigeria on the global map, with its premier Tier III Lekki Data Center, the only data center in West Africa that is authorized to process and store payment card information with its PCI DSS certification. MDXI is also certified as ISO 27001, 9001 compliant and is the only SAP certified provider of hosting services in the region. 

The company ITRealms further gathered, has contributed significantly to deepening Nigeria’s digital economy with its highly available, carrier-neutral ICT infrastructure, enabling network operators and content providers exchange traffic within its data center. As West Africa’s most connected data center and home of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), MDXi has impacted internet traffic in-country, by localizing traffic, reducing transmission costs and improving user experiences.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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