Rsaweb in South Africa Deploys SolidFire All-Flash Platform

SolidFire, Inc. announced that RSAWEB, a hosting and connectivity provider in South Africa, is the first internet service provider to deploy its all-flash scale-out storage platform on the African continent, specifically in its data centers in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

For the first time, companies on the African continent can manage resources on demand with fast, secure, scalable infrastructure that delivers guaranteed and predictable performance in the cloud and removes the barriers typically associated with the move to the cloud.

Driven by the demand for better data center performance, the cloud is gaining momentum in Africa. According to a report by Gartner, “about half of Africa respondents considered cloud – specifically SaaS – as a viable option. Investments in infrastructure and data center climbed to the top of the list from No. 3 last year. Investment in this area is fueled by the banking and oil industries, which are keen to improve their data center performance¹.”

In line with Gartner’s findings, RSAWEB’s customers require an infrastructure with simple online management, resiliency and performance predictability without any maintenance or capital cost headaches. SolidFire meets these needs by offering the ability to allocate, manage and guarantee storage performance with complete data and performance availability, regardless of system condition or application activity.

Leveraging SolidFire storage infrastructure, RSAWEB can provide its customers with flexible, infinitely scalable cloud server and virtual private data centre infrastructure at an affordable price.

Unlike any other vendor, SolidFire enables RSAWEB to isolate and identify root causes of performance spikes and eliminate noisy neighbor’s issues – applications that monopolize performance and slow it down for others. Its linear scale-out architecture means RSAWEB can scale performance and capacity independently, without downtime or disruption. SolidFire’s REST-based API allows for integration with RSAWEB’s VMware-based environment and its automation capabilities eliminate the challenges of day-to-day operations.

“The recent rollout of high-speed fiber connectivity combined with customers’ needs for speed and performance have made all-flash arrays the ideal choice for storage infrastructure in Africa. SolidFire enables us to not only meet this demand, but allows us to deliver additional value through linear and modular scalability and automation,” said Allan Boyle, operations director, RSAWEB.

“Storage has historically been a barrier that prevented many companies from going to the cloud. But with SolidFire at the core of our infrastructure, we can break down this barrier and give customers the confidence they need to move more workloads to the cloud,” said Andrew Cruise, cloud engineering manager, RSAWEB. “There are no more excuses to not go to the cloud. SolidFire’s automation, performance, scalability and flexibility open up brand new customer opportunities for us.“

“RSAWEB has always been an innovative company, launching the first public pay-as-you-go IaaS service in South Africa in 2010. With an infrastructure Fueled by SolidFire, it continues to drive innovation for its customers and allows us to establish strong presence in the region,” said Stuart Oliver, global service provider programs manager, SolidFire. “Our solution was designed from the ground up for service providers like RSAWEB, enabling them to deliver performance-sensitive applications from a shared cloud infrastructure. Combined with our scale-out model and automation, service providers and their customers gain increased agility, allowing them to respond to business demands faster than ever.“

SolidFire’s partner and IaaS integrator ShapeBlue Ltd played an integral role in the deployment by enabling RSAWEB to test the solution and providing local technical, commercial and operational support throughout the entire process.

“At ShapeBlue, we are always assessing the market for best-fit technology for our cloud customers’ environments. Providing feature-rich, automated and competitive cloud services is vital,” said Dan Crowe, managing consultant, ShapeBlue South Africa. “SolidFire’s solutions are proven and trusted. In addition, by offering practical space and power-saving efficiencies and enabling us and RSAWEB to use the existing supply chain, SolidFire was the perfect fit.“

¹ Gartner 2015 CIO Agenda: An Africa Perspective, Mbula Schoen, Wm. L. Hahn, 30 Jan.2015