Johannesburg 1 – Getting a hot spot cooled

Over the next 18 months, we’ll open 13 new data center buildings in six countries across EMEA and add 115MW of IT load to our existing portfolio. While our core values remain the same for each NTT data center, every site has its own challenges, with different needs to deliver the Tier 1 high-quality data centers that NTT builds. Let’s have a look at our new data center in Johannesburg, our first high-density data center in Africa.

Full range of services

6,000m² of IT space and a maximum of 12MW will be offered in our new Johannesburg 1 Data Center once the current phase is fully built out. Clients will benefit from our full portfolio of services ranging from Colocation Racks to Dedicated Suites and from services such as Remote Hands to Cloud Connect. With our 24/7 security operations and remote service center we’ll ensure the security of the site. Clients will be able to benefit from access to a rich blend of local, national, and international networks, cloud service providers and internet exchange points. Clients will also be able to seamlessly connect services between NTT’s existing data centers across the region. Our overall quality and service standards are the same no matter which location you choose.

Environmental adaptions

Especially challenging in South Africa is the cooling of the IT systems. In a number of our European locations, we use adiabatic cooling systems to improve overall efficiency. As water is a scarce resource in South Africa, our priority there is to save water. When designing the Johannesburg 1 Data Center, we decided to implement a dry air free cooling system. The water running through the chiller systems isn’t evaporated and stays in a closed loop. This way our Johannesburg 1 Data Center will still achieve a low PUE whilst also achieving a Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) – defined as the ratio between the annual water usage of a site in liters and the energy consumption of the IT equipment in the same period in kWh – of close to zero.

Conscious decisions

Our commitment is clear: we want to reduce our carbon footprint and are looking for ways to achieve sustainable solutions for all our data center sites. Based on local conditions, we decide which goals to focus on and what technologies can be applied to reach those goals, such as at our Munich 2  and London 1 data centers. We’re happy to provide further insights into our Johannesburg 1 facility. Please get in touch with our data center experts at +49 69 7801 2110, by email to dc.emea.sales@global.ntt or via the contact form.