Under the hood

What we're building
right now.

The new data centre platform at African Data Centres is live: high-availability clusters on a three-tier storage stack, measured at 12.9 GB/s and carrying real workloads. Below it is everything else in flight, from in-house platforms to live client projects. This is the engine room, and it's always running.

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New data centre

Live

African Data Centres

SAN capacity

220 TB

Across the estate

Measured NVMe write

12.9 GB/s

11.7 GB/s read

Monitored

Always

Automated alerting

Flagship build

The new platform at African Data Centres is live.

The clusters are up and workloads are running on them: some built from scratch, some migrated across, our own Hyper-V cluster on Storage Spaces Direct among them. Behind them sits a three-tier storage stack we measured rather than estimated, reading at 11.7 GB/s and writing at 12.9 GB/s on flash, with a live VM migration between hosts peaking at 9.5 GB/s across a 200 Gbps fabric. Every VM is written to two hosts as it runs, so the capacity we quote is what your data can occupy and a whole host can fail without taking your workload with it.

Built, migrated and carrying production workloads

26.5 TiB protected NVMe

Client data on the flash tier, counted after mirroring rather than before it.

26.5 TiB protected SAS SSD

A second flash tier for warm production workloads, measured at 4.7 GB/s read.

Bulk tier over iSCSI

A separate array presented to the cluster, for data that does not need flash under it.

11.7 GB/s read, 12.9 GB/s write

Measured on the NVMe tier, sequential, not a manufacturer rating.

9.5 GB/s live migration

Peak observed moving a running VM between hosts, under real production load.

200 Gbps storage fabric

Dual 100 GbE bonded, carrying storage and replication on their own path.

Dual 25 GbE per host

Separate bonded links for everything else, so losing one changes nothing.

10 Gbps to Teraco

A dedicated link between our two Johannesburg halls.

3 TB RAM per cluster

1.5 TB in each host, at clock speeds up to 4.0 GHz.

High availability

Every VM is synchronised to a second host as it runs, so a host can fail without taking your workload with it.

In-house platforms

What we're building for you

Behind the services you see, we're engineering the platforms that make them faster, safer and easier to run.

Migrating

New backup platform

Faster, more resilient backups with offsite copies baked in as standard.

Building

Core management platform

A central platform to manage and monitor everything we run: more automation, tighter security and faster response.

Building

Client portal

Self-service control for clients: manage licences and users, and see your whole IT setup in one place.

Building

WordPress VPS monitoring

Custom uptime, performance and health monitoring for our WordPress VPS sites, with alerts that fire before problems reach your visitors.

Almost done

Network monitoring platform

A new network monitoring platform that plugs into the Client Portal so clients can watch their own network health.

Live client projects

Work in flight, right now

Real deployments and migrations we're running for clients this month, done properly with backups and offsite copies as standard.

Just signed

Financial services client

Security audit into a full upgrade

An audit of the whole estate turned into a programme of work across network, identity, email and backups, rather than a report that sits in a drawer.

Starting

Same engagement

Server room and cabling remediation

Racks rebuilt, every run tested, labelled and re-terminated, unmanaged switching replaced with managed PoE+, and WiFi 7 access points mounted where they should have been.

In progress

Existing client

Hypervisor and backup migration

Moving a client to a new hypervisor with a full backup migration, and offsite backups added as part of the move.

In build

Existing client

New cluster build

A brand-new cluster with backups and offsite backups configured from day one.

Client names shown with permission. Prefer we keep yours private? We always can.

Network, identity and security

Always moving forward

Security never sleeps. Here's the M365, identity and network work moving through the pipeline.

Passkey rollout across M365 clients

Rolling passwordless passkey sign-in out to Microsoft 365 clients: stronger security, fewer password headaches.

This week

Tenant migration: EU to South Africa

Moving a client's Microsoft 365 tenant out of a European region into South Africa for data residency and performance: mailboxes, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, with every workstation re-joined to the new tenant over a single weekend cutover.

70 users

Defender for Office 365 P2 rollout

Layered mail security with conditional access and identity protection, plus attack simulation training, so staff meet a phishing attempt from us before they meet one from somebody else.

Just signed

802.1X certificate authentication

Certificate-based network access tied to Active Directory, so a device has to prove what it is before the network gives it anything.

Starting

Offsite backups for an on-prem estate

Image-level VM backups replicated into our data centre, encrypted in transit and at rest, with a documented test restore proving recovery before the service goes live.

Just signed

SharePoint rebuilt on the way across

A tenant migration is the one moment a folder structure and its permissions can be redesigned from scratch instead of inherited, so that is being done rather than carried across.

Part of the move

Windows Hello for Business

Moving two hybrid environments across to Windows Hello for Business for passwordless, device-bound sign-in.

2 hybrid setups

IPv6 rollout

Planning the IPv6 rollout that future-proofs the network for the next generation of connectivity.

Planning

New Business and Home core migration

Migrating the Business and Home core network onto the new platform for faster, more resilient routing.

In progress

Microsoft 365 tenant splits

Separating shared tenants into clean, independent tenants for clearer ownership, tighter security and simpler billing.

2 pending

Momentum

Want this kind of engine behind your IT?

New infrastructure, real platforms, proper backups: all quietly working for the businesses we look after. Let's talk about what we can build for you.

Talk to us Explore our services or call 012 004 0615

What we're building
right now.

The new platform at African Data Centres is live.

Built, migrated and carrying production workloads

What we're buildingright now.

The new platform at African Data Centres is live.

26.5 TiB protected NVMe

26.5 TiB protected SAS SSD

Bulk tier over iSCSI

11.7 GB/s read, 12.9 GB/s write

9.5 GB/s live migration

200 Gbps storage fabric

Dual 25 GbE per host

10 Gbps to Teraco

3 TB RAM per cluster

High availability

What we're building for you

New backup platform

Core management platform

Client portal

WordPress VPS monitoring

Network monitoring platform

Work in flight, right now

Security audit into a full upgrade

Server room and cabling remediation

Hypervisor and backup migration

New cluster build

Always moving forward

Passkey rollout across M365 clients

Tenant migration: EU to South Africa

Defender for Office 365 P2 rollout

802.1X certificate authentication

Offsite backups for an on-prem estate

SharePoint rebuilt on the way across

Windows Hello for Business

IPv6 rollout

New Business and Home core migration

Microsoft 365 tenant splits

Want this kind of engine behind your IT?

What we're buildingright now.

The new platform at African Data Centres is live.

26.5 TiB protected NVMe

26.5 TiB protected SAS SSD

Bulk tier over iSCSI

11.7 GB/s read, 12.9 GB/s write

9.5 GB/s live migration

200 Gbps storage fabric

Dual 25 GbE per host

10 Gbps to Teraco

3 TB RAM per cluster

High availability

What we're building for you

New backup platform

Core management platform

Client portal

WordPress VPS monitoring

Network monitoring platform

Work in flight, right now

Security audit into a full upgrade

Server room and cabling remediation

Hypervisor and backup migration

New cluster build

Always moving forward

Passkey rollout across M365 clients

Tenant migration: EU to South Africa

Defender for Office 365 P2 rollout

802.1X certificate authentication

Offsite backups for an on-prem estate

SharePoint rebuilt on the way across

Windows Hello for Business

IPv6 rollout

New Business and Home core migration

Microsoft 365 tenant splits

Want this kind of engine behind your IT?

What we're building
right now.

What we're building
right now.