The acquisition comes as a result of a increased demand for Cloud services. It’s clear to us that South African businesses are waking up to the advantages of Cloud hosting as opposed to traditional hosting models like in-sourced Data Centres and dedicated servers. We also believe that the prolific emergence of innovative technology companies and supporting community-driven bodies such as Silicon Cape are also factors spurring the growth of Cloud services in the mother city.

Earlier this year we introduced South Africa’s first true Cloud Server product, offering consumers needing to host locally a Cloud hosting experience only available through overseas Cloud giants such as Rackspace and Amazon. To date, over two thousand Cloud servers have been provisioned on the RSAWEB Cloud!

One of the most significant aspects of the new DC is the ability to enable dual Data Centre redundancy. The geographic location of the new facility in relation to our flagship Data Centre in Cape Town is a huge competitive advantage. Both Data Centres are directly connected by fibre links – enabling us to replicate data and provide unparalleled redundancy for mission-critical hosting solutions. Further redundancy is added as both Data Centres operate on separate Eskom power grids, and are connected via separate Telkom exchanges. The new facility also boasts high-speed fibre links to Telkom, Neotel and RSAWEB’s own fibre network.

As has been the case historically, our strategy going forward is to build and own our own Data Centres. Looking to the future, we have Johannesburg in our sights for future acquisitions, and are currently looking for suitable opportunities.

The new DC is currently being upgraded, and is set to come online in late December 2010.

The application, Travellogger, was developed by White Wall Web in response to recent stipulation enforced by SARS, which states that effective 1 March 2009, South African tax payers will be required to properly track their travel and related expenses in order to qualify for rebates.

Travellogger enables users to track their mileage online throughout the year and easily export the data to a CSV file for use in Excel, when it becomes time to submit their annual returns. This application is also compatible with most cellphone browsers, making it ideal for “on the road” logging.

All  data is stored on one of our web servers in the Cape Town Data Centre environment, greatly reducing the risk of data-loss normally associated with paper based alternatives. Ruby on Rails is the web language of choice used to build the application and its developers worked in conjunction with RSAWEB engineers to setup and migrate the application onto our web servers.

Visit www.travellogger.co.za to check it out.

Join us for the RSAWEB Data Centre Tour

For those wishing to join our Data Centre Tour scheduled for Nov 13, the tour is now fully booked. However, due to popular demand, we’ve created another opportunity for visitors to take a guided tour of our Cape Town Data Centre. (If you missed the details on what the tour is all about, you can read about it here.)

The details for our 2nd Data Centre Tour are as follows:

Date: 20 November
Time: 10am -11am
Street Address: 1st Floor, The Terraces, 34 Bree Street, Cape Town.

For security purposes, you will be required to bring your ID/drivers license for identification.

To book your space on the tour, please RSVP well in advance.

During the month of November RSAWEB will be opening the doors of their Cape Town Data Centre to the public for guided tours of the facilities by their team of technical virtuosos.

Located in the heart of the Cape Town CBD inside the majestic Terraces building, RSAWEB Data Centre 2 is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. As MD Rob Gilmour puts it: “For businesses looking to expand into prime data real-estate at affordable prices, this is it…”

DC2 is loaded with features, including fully redundant power systems, raised flooring, advanced climate control, Cisco certified Gigabit network backbone, redundant connectivity systems and biometric access control amongst others. More than that, the Data Centre provides a host of business opportunities as well: “DC2 provides the perfect platform for customers to create and package their own web based products. We offer the full range of hosted products from rented servers to fully managed solutions best suited to companies looking to grow their internet infrastructure without the associated capital costs…” affirms Technical Director Mark Slingsby.

Come and discover the inner workings of our world class Data Centre environment and stick around afterwards for a cappuccino, muffin and some serious techie talk.

The first tour is scheduled to take place on Thursday the 13th of November, and is open to everyone, whether you’re an existing RSAWEB customer or not. Tour space is limited, so you must RSVP with you name, company & contact details should you wish to participate.