Q&A: Anthony Voscarides, CEO, Djibouti Data Center

Q&A: Anthony Voscarides, CEO, Djibouti Data Center

Capacity Middle East Day 2: Djibouti Data Center's Anthony Voscarides discusses some of the company's strategic priorities for the Middle East this year.

What makes the Middle East an attractive market for Djibouti Data Center to work in?

The DDC is the first and only data centre facility in East Africa with access to all major international fibre-optic systems connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions with Africa. These include SMW3, EIG, ESSAy, SEACOM, WIOCC, and YEMEN-Djibouti. New fibre cable systems under construction in 2014-2016 include AAE1, SMW5, and GBI. The Djibouti Data Center is located just meters from the Djibouti Telecom international fibre cable landing station, and stands out as a reliable and cost-effective gateway, especially for the Middle East carriers wishing to access one of the world’s fastest growing markets.

 

What are some of the challenges of operating in the Middle Eastern market?

The exponential growth of internet traffic and IP based services will have a direct impact on the network capacity requirements and underlying infrastructure. Service providers will need cost-effective solutions and more interconnectivity to accommodate the increased demand in order to offer competitively priced products and services to end users. 


What are your strategic priorities in the Middle East for 2015 and what announcements can we expect from Djibouti Data Center in this region this year?

The Djibouti Data Center is highly committed to providing its customers with innovative solutions. We are continuously driving new fibre cable system development projects to enhance global and regional connectivity from East Africa to the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The DDC's ecosystem is a catalyst for supporting the market expansion plans of global service providers in East Africa, including those of the Middle East. The launch of Djibouti Internet Exchange (DjIX) is a reflection to Djibouti Data Center’s commitment to innovation. The DjIX is the first of its kind in East Africa and will allow customers, carriers and ISPs to keep local internet traffic in East Africa at the same time reducing latency, allowing faster connectivity and decreased costs.


What major trends do you see occurring in the Middle Eastern data centre market this year?

There are many trends developing in the Middle Eastern and African markets, including the need for local internet exchange points in order that IP service providers can peer locally and keep local traffic local in their respective regions. This will improve overall network efficiency, resilience and performance, which will lead to a better end user and customer experience. Additionally, content delivery service providers (CDNs) are continuing to expand their network footprints in both the Middle East and Africa, and data centres will need to provide a robust ecosystem that accommodates new CDN provider requirements.


What does Djibouti Data Center hope to achieve by attending Capacity Middle East 2015?

Capacity Middle East is one of our most important platforms to inform our customers of our services, and to promote the Djibouti Data Center as a unique gateway hub in East Africa.  We expect that interest levels in our products, services, and unique capabilities in Africa will continue to grow throughout 2015, and that Capacity Middle East will be an excellent forum for us to showcase our capabilities.  

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