South African complexity translates into global ingenuity

We believe that the complexities inherent within South Africa are igniting innovative developments that have immense potential on the global stage – it is local ingenuity for global complexity.

South Africa has challenges. Infrastructure, service delivery, the economy – these are the hurdles that companies operating in this country face daily. It’s complex and can be frustrating. It’s also a template for opportunity and success. As organisations navigate these obstacles, they're forced to innovate and adapt, creating solutions that have global potential while still driving local growth.

At the risk of stating the obvious, one of the biggest issues is power. In South Africa, the lack of power stability has meant that service providers within the data centre space have had to come up with multiple stand-by answers to the electricity question. Data centres here have belts, bracers and three other solutions on standby to ensure that the electricity supply is 24/7 because anything can happen at any time. Now, as power issues filter across Europe and the UK, companies in these regions are struggling. Energy provision problems are very new for them whereas local companies have the tools and the expertise to manage and mitigate power volatility.

It is an opportunity for global companies to collaborate with local ones and develop solutions that can potentially evolve to serve everyone more effectively. Imagine the energy efficiency customisation benefits felt by Europe and the learning opportunity for data centres globally? It could contribute significantly to best practice in data centre optimisation and power management in the future.

A similar challenge was felt by these countries in the summer of 2023. As one of the hottest on record in one of the hottest years, it posed a significant threat to data centre cooling in the region. In July, both Google and Oracle had to take their London data centres offline when the temperatures went over 40 degrees because their cooling systems were unable to keep up.

Here too South African expertise has an innate understanding of how to build a data centre with cooling at the heart of design and planning.

One of the ways in which data centres manage their cooling is with water. But what happens when water becomes a scarce or unreliable resource? The ability to cool a data centre with a block of ice is an impossibility in regions where water supply isn’t constant, and at a time when water scarcity is becoming a global concern. There are more modern and capable ways of managing cooling, leveraging natural air and circulation that not only remove the water problem, but also use less electricity. South African companies have found quality cooling and power provisioning despite these challenges and within increasingly tightening budgets. Local expertise has the potential to translate these solutions for global organisations, providing them with the insights they need to build for climate, water and temperature unpredictability.

Another thing that South Africa currently does well is customer engagement and support. European and American data centres rarely offer support beyond digital channels with very few providing a number that customers can call. While they operate at a far greater scale, it’s rare for a data centre facility in the region to list their number. Here, it is an important capability baked into the business.

Customers want to know how to get equipment into the building, how self service works, if there’s a space to sit and relax. There is something meaningful about connecting with customers on a personal, direct level that can enhance operations for organisations across all continents – a reality reflected in the xneelo customer experience at our Samrand Data Centre.

Finally, in the worlds of data centres, data, security, the internet and e-commerce, value is the final touchpoint for success. Customers are looking for data and data provisioning solutions that deliver value for money and exceptional service. They want power to be consistent and for the data centre to make their lives easier, faster, smoother and more efficient. They need reliability baked into the foundations of service and infrastructure.

South African companies deliver this reliability. We have a plan C and a plan D, we focus on service and support as standard and we understand the importance of innovating within complexity and infrastructural instability. While often we cannot differentiate on price thanks to complex external factors, we can differentiate on innovation and customer support because we understand the value of delivering value.

The xneelo advantage

xneelo has been developing, building and creating solutions customised for our data centre environments.

As a result, our data centres are focused on sustainable and cost-effective service delivery alongside excellent customer service. Our commitment to ongoing R&D ensures components are always best in class and relevant for server loads and requirements, and we ensure our systems are backwards compatible so customers are always assured of rapid integration and immediate service delivery.

We are focused on offering our customers, both locally and abroad, immense peace of mind within a highly agile and well-engineered ecosystem that meets their unique business expectations.

Whether you’re a small business starting out or an agency bursting at the seams, your website is in safe hands with us.

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