East Africa Data Centre (EADC), a subsidiary of Liquid Telecom Kenya, has won Tier III Certification for its data centre, having established its delivery of 100% uptime in its electricity supply, cooling systems, and IT systems.
The certification, from the global Uptime Institute, provides a guarantee of uninterrupted service for the organisations storing data at EADC, which include Google and Facebook, which hold their regional caches at EADC; the Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP), also housed at EADC, and for the large volume of banking and commercial data stored in the centre.
EADC is a carrier-neutral data centre in Nairobi and is the largest and most sophisticated in East Africa, offering secure and reliable space for dedicated hosting, interconnect services, collocation, disaster recovery, network-based services, applications and cloud services. A Tier 3 data centre, built to international standards, it is the only purpose-built data centre in East Africa.
The data centre becomes the first in East and Central Africa to win the uptime certification.
“This is an important step in data centre guarantees in Kenya and East and Central Africa, as EADC joins the relatively few data centres across the world in gaining the Uptime Institute Tier III Design Certification,” said Dan Kwach the EADC General Manager.
Uptime Institute Professional Services is the only firm in the world licensed to rate and certify designs, constructed facilities and ongoing operations against its Classification System and Operational Sustainability criteria, to deliver stamps of assurance that the site management and processes are delivering the guarantee of 100% uptime.
“EADC’s certification is a reflection of its dedication to securing excellence in the realm of data and hosting solutions,” said Uptime Institute President R. Lee Kirby.
The award follows the investment by EADC in a new Kenya Power substation, which saw it move to one of the highest proportions of green energy in the world. The $5m investment has substantially reduced its use of the comprehensive back up power systems, which are diesel powered.
EADC houses 2,000 square metres of secured space for data servers on three floors in the centre, making it the largest data centre in the region, as well as now the most reliable.
