South African businesses have five major cloud services to choose from that can make their operations more flexible, efficient, and unlock strategic value.
If you’ve used the Internet in the past few years, you have likely accessed a website or app that runs on a cloud service.
The precise technicalities of how a cloud computing platform operates can be overwhelming.
But, as Amazon Web Services (AWS) explains, cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources through the Internet.
There are numerous benefits to using cloud services for your business instead of solely running off your equipment.
One of the world’s biggest cloud services providers — Google Cloud — said there are six primary benefits to using cloud computing:
1. Faster time to market
Companies can easily and quickly spin up apps and systems for testing new ideas or designs and retire them if they don’t deliver the required outcome.
2. Scalability and flexibility
Businesses can scale their computing power and storage as needed without investing in new physical architecture.
3. Cost savings
You only pay for the resources you use, avoiding the risk of costly overbuilds or overprovisioning in your own data centre space.
4. Better collaboration
Your data is accessible from basically anywhere on the globe, at least where the Internet is available. This allows people to work or collaborate from wherever they may be.
5. Advanced security
Reputed cloud services offer a range of security features, automatic maintenance, and centralised management. Top-notch providers also employ security experts to ensure their protection remains up to date.
6. Data loss prevention
Backup and disaster recovery features ensure that your business can restore systems and data in the event of a system failure or cyberattack.
Cloud services with local presence
It is technically possible to use a cloud service without a local presence, but providers with data centre infrastructure on home ground will offer better performance due to lower latency.
Businesses should also be aware of certain provisions in South Africa’s Protection of Private Information Act (POPIA) that govern the transfer of South Africans’ personal data outside of the country,
Section 72 of the act prevents the transfer of any personal information of data subjects to third parties outside of South Africa without certain protections in place.
Although these measures can be complex to navigate, reputable cloud services must ensure that they comply with the laws of the country where they have a presence.
Therefore, using a service with a local presence could prevent your business avoid violating data-sharing laws when handling customer or staff details online.
Below are five of the biggest cloud service providers in South Africa, which either have a local presence or plan to launch a South African region soon.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS launched its first African region in Cape Town in April 2020. The location offers three clusters of data centres — also known as availability zones.
The world’s biggest cloud service provider has deep roots in South Africa, stretching back to 2004 when it set up a development centre in Cape Town.
Under the stewardship of software engineer Chris Pinkham and lead developer Christopher Brown, the team created Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) — the very first AWS cloud service.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Most Internet users will have accessed a service running on GCP in the past few years, given that it currently powers popular applications like Google Search, YouTube, Google Drive, and YouTube.
In October 2022, Google announced that it would add a South African region to GCP, its first location in Africa.
The region will be hosted in Johannesburg and feature three zones. Its exact launch date remains to be confirmed.
Huawei Cloud
Huawei Cloud offers three availability zones out of its own data centres in Johannesburg, which first came into operation in March 2019.
The company says this facility complies with Tier 3+ standards. It uses Huawei’s own high-performance chips and network devices.
Oracle Cloud
Oracle rolled out its Johannesburg region in January 2022, one of eight new locations that form part of an aggressive rollout strategy.
At the time, Oracle EMEA executive vice president Richard Smith said the new region offered a “next-generation” cloud to run any application faster and more securely for less.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure lets customers migrate IT workloads and data platforms to the cloud or build cloud-native applications.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft opened its first South Africa-based enterprise-grade data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town in March 2019.
It added three availability zones for Azure at its Johannesburg facility in October 2021.
Azure underpins all of Microsoft’s cloud-based services, including its popular Microsoft 365 productivity suite.
