Page 1112 - Cloud computing: From paradigm to operation

8 Assisting developing countries

The data centres are built to Tier III standard with multiple dark fibre and MPLS links, multiple DWDM and
dual full stack IPv4 and IPv6 support.

The Zambia National Data Centre is cognisant of the challenges affecting cloud computing uptake in the
country. Among the challenges is connectivity. The data centres have been declared as carrier neutral data
centres allowing all ISPs and carriers in the country to form a local traffic fabric loop at the data centres. With
this, data centre clients have a choice of Internet service providers to choose from as and when service level
agreements (SLAs) are not met.

In cognizance of security challenges, measures have been taken to mitigate these challenges by adopting
best practices from regional data centres in Kenya and South Africa. The data centres have adopted ISO 27001
and is in the process of undergoing the payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) to optimise
security as the centre will handle financial data.
In order to increase client confidence and trust, the ZNDC facilities are undergoing Tier III certification with
the Uptime Institute (UI) to guarantee availability and operational and sustainability of the facility.

Case study 2: Tunisie Télécom
Tunisie Télécom, the incumbent telecom operator in Tunisia, considers data Centres as an extension of its
infrastructure to support the convergence of communication and information technologies. In this regard,
Tunisie Télécom has built, to date, three data centres, as follows:
a) Primary data center: Carthage Data Centre

Located in the northern suburb of the capital Tunis, and inaugurated in October 2013, this data centre, is
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the largest data centre of Tunisie Télécom (space of the data centre: 2 700 m , hosting space: 660 m ) and
it has the largest capacities among Tunisie Télécom's data Centres in terms of hosting (200 racks), energy
and connectivity.
This data Centre is ISO 27001-certified (Information Security Management System) since May 2016 and it is
compliant with the specifications of ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) and Tier III
certifications (the process of request of these two certifications is ongoing). Carthage Data Centre is
currently hosting the cloud computing platform of Tunisie Télécom as well as data for many clients from
Tunisia.

b) Secondary data centre: Kasba Data Centre
This data centre is located in the capital Tunis, around 20 km from the primary data Centre. It was the first
data centre established by Tunisie Télécom over an area of 280 m². This data centre is hosting the SaaS
platform of Tunisie Télécom.

c) Disaster recovery data centre: Kairouan Data Centre
This data centre was recently established and it is located in the western region of the country, around
160 km from the primary data centre. It is used for disaster recovery and it guarantees a physical and
geographical redundancy.
Each data centre is compliant with [TIA-942 standards], and each of them is connected with at least two
different fibre links to Tunisie Télécom's MPLS Backbone to ensure redundancy (10 Gbit/s fibre links for
Carthage and Kairouan Data Centres and 1 Gbit/s fibre links for Kasba Data Centre).

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