4 ms·

If you host your data center in Africa, but use cloud services in USA or Europe, the latency is going to kill you and your app will even be slower. So you mus

If you host your data center in Africa, but use cloud services in USA or Europe, the latency is going to kill you and your app will even be slower. So you must be willing to give up using AWS, Azure, GCP, etc. If not, then the title of the talk should be AWS, Azure, GCP should build data centers in Africa, but then it doesn't make sense economically. The article mentioned how Nigerians spend about $60 million a year on outside data centers. VCs won't even invest in a software only startup that will make $60mil a year. Let alone a business like a datacenter that needs physical location, properties, personnel, etc

L_226 7y ago
AWS is opening a datacentre in SA next year: https://aws.amazon.com/local/africa/ https://aws.amazon.com/local/africa/
- danielrhodes 7y ago
  Fun fact: EC2/AWS created by a team out of Cape Town.
- gatvol 7y ago
  Cape Town has a few things going for it: fairly good infrastructure, proximity to cable landing stations, and a nuclear power station.
coderintherye 7y ago
You are ignoring that there are services in Africa focused on the African market. These services could greatly benefit from hosting in a data center and serving their customers from the same continent without having to hop to the EU and back. Granted, depending on where you are (equatorial coast vs. southern) then you may end up hopping anyways because there isn't much (any?) direct usable fiber across the continent.
hedvig 7y ago
>VCs won't even invest in a software only startup that will make $60mil a year. So you're saying capitalism has limitations on what it focuses on?
vbezhenar 7y ago
What's EU latency in Africa? I live in Kazakhstan and EU latency here 80-150 ms. It's pretty fast. I'm actually using Amsterdam VPN almost all the time, and I don't notice any slowdowns.
- animal531 7y ago
  From South Africa to the EU it is generally in the 150-250ms range, sadly we're far away from the major centers.

L_226 7y ago

AWS is opening a datacentre in SA next year: https://aws.amazon.com/local/africa/ https://aws.amazon.com/local/africa/

danielrhodes 7y ago
Fun fact: EC2/AWS created by a team out of Cape Town.
gatvol 7y ago
Cape Town has a few things going for it: fairly good infrastructure, proximity to cable landing stations, and a nuclear power station.

coderintherye 7y ago

You are ignoring that there are services in Africa focused on the African market. These services could greatly benefit from hosting in a data center and serving their customers from the same continent without having to hop to the EU and back. Granted, depending on where you are (equatorial coast vs. southern) then you may end up hopping anyways because there isn't much (any?) direct usable fiber across the continent.

hedvig 7y ago

>VCs won't even invest in a software only startup that will make $60mil a year. So you're saying capitalism has limitations on what it focuses on?

vbezhenar 7y ago

What's EU latency in Africa? I live in Kazakhstan and EU latency here 80-150 ms. It's pretty fast. I'm actually using Amsterdam VPN almost all the time, and I don't notice any slowdowns.

animal531 7y ago
From South Africa to the EU it is generally in the 150-250ms range, sadly we're far away from the major centers.