Re: Colo in Africa

[Joel Jaeggli <joelja () bogus com>]

> On Jul 16, 2019, at 07:33, Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour () gmail com> wrote:
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the 
> region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
>
> The challenges:
> Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files).
> Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time.
> Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa
> We can initially only have one POP
> This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
>
> Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or 
> colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
>
> "Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and 
> good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.

100ms from most of the rest of Africa is going to be a bit dubious. If you draw a line horizontally through Senegal the 
costal stuff north of it can mostly be served in under 100ms from Europe.

While cross border terrestrial fiber exists most networks I’ve been exposed to have east west and north south 
connectivity Via submarine connected networks.  This make it hard to locate one low latency spot in the middle.

NSRC has a project that can provide some background on terrestrial fiber.

https://afterfibre.nsrc.org/

The next best place to my mind for reach east and west is South Africa where you can pick up something of a diversity 
of transit find decent colo and pick up a few out of region peers if you locate near jinx or cinx which are both multi 
building connected exchanges.

> Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve 
> the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
>
> I hope this is the right place to ask.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Ken