South African companies, particularly those in the Eastern and Western Cape regions, are turning towards outsourcing firms for assistance in managing the IT risks they face as a result of an unreliable electricity supply.
This is the word from Phil Savides, regional chief executive of Business Connexion`s Western Cape Region. He says organisations around the country are heeding the call from municipalities to put contingency plans in place to deal with the risk that blackouts and other power faults pose for their businesses.
"Companies are being forced to examine how they will deal with blackouts, power surges and other problems with electricity supply. Some companies are spending millions of rand upgrading their own data centres to deal with power issues as they attempt to protect their mission-critical systems and processes from risk," says Savides.
"Others are exploring the possibility of looking to outsource the management of the risks attached with power failures to external service providers that run high-end data centres."
Corporate governance laws, best practices and regulations place responsibility on companies to ensure they protect their information assets and put reasonable business continuity plans in place, adds Savides.
He says companies that are opting to tackle the problem by investing in their own infrastructure are trying to secure dual power feeds (from two different power stations) and installing redundant battery supplies, generators and electrical connections in their data centres. Across the board companies are looking to protect their systems against risk at branch and retail store level by investing in infrastructure such as uninterrupted power supply (UPS) units and generators.
The companies that are exploring the possibility of partnering with a specialist outsourcing company are following a trend set internationally. They know that the advantages of contracting with firms that provide specialist data centres have been proven internationally - in cities like California in the USA, which experienced a power crisis of its own early in the decade, and in the south-east of England where stretched infrastructure has constrained companies from building large computer installations around the M25 ring.
He points out that outsourcing firms design their data centres according to the most rigorous international standards to ensure mission-critical systems will stay alive during power outages. This allows them to provide a service that many internal data centres at user companies are not able to match. Outsourcing firms follow the dictates of legislation and guidelines of international and local best practice to ensure their services can meet the most stringent corporate governance requirements.
Savides says in recent months he has seen an increase in the number of large and mid-sized companies in the western and eastern Cape that are looking to outsource.
"One of their key questions is to find out how well equipped the potential partner is to handle electricity outages. Increasingly companies are looking to outsource to a firm that runs a data centre outside of the region in the hope that it will be able to provide a more reliable power supply."
Companies are opting to partner with outsourcers like Business Connexion, which provides data services to a cross-section of South African businesses including those operating in the resources, manufacturing, retail, financial services and government sectors. They recognise that specialist companies house newer processing and cooling equipment that put less of a load on the electricity grid per unit of computing power delivered than in-house infrastructure does. These companies also have the economies of scale that allow them to invest in power backup infrastructure of a quality, scale and size that few companies can justify as an in-house investment.
Savides concludes: "There are no short-term solutions to the electricity problems South African businesses face. The electricity grid is already running at full throttle while a growing economy is spurring even more demand for power. Of course, the growth in the economy also creates demand for reliable data centre services as local businesses are increasingly competing in a globalised and networked world.
"That means businesses must recognise that they face a long-term challenge with the electricity supply. In response, they should seek out flexible solutions that can cater for their growth into the future. It is imperative for South African businesses to have IT reliability ratings that match the rest of the world if they are to be globally competitive."
Share
Editorial contacts