Equinix opens fourth datacentre in MENA in Oman

• New interconnection hub, in partnership with Omantel, will support content traffic growth in region.

Dubai: Colocation datacentre provider Equinix has opened its fourth International Business Exchange facility in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Barka, Oman.

The new Equinix IBX in Oman will serve as a regional interconnection hub providing ultra-low latency connection points between key global business markets.

Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) is the joint venture and telecom partner.

“We are seeing an accelerated demand for digital transformation in MENA. Across different sectors, organisations are re-assessing their cloud adoption strategies and cloud readiness. In the digital age, companies need to reach all the right places and partners to seize opportunity, and they need to do it out at the edge,” Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA at Equinix, said.

The site, MC1, is operated by Equinix and includes more than 23,600 square feet of colocation space and 725 cabinets. The site has capacity to grow to more than 2,150 cabinets with future IBX builds.

With subsea cable systems terminating directly in MC1, the site benefits from continued investments by Omantel in multiple strategic subsea cable systems throughout the world, reaching over 50 countries globally.

Omantel currently has investments in more than 20 subsea cable systems and leverages six diverse landing stations in Oman and one in Marseille, France.

Cloud gathers in region

 “Today, datacentre infrastructure sits at the heart of global ICT and enables all of us to enjoy the cloud-based apps and services we use every day. The new IBX in Oman represents a significant step forward for Oman and the Middle Eastern ICT markets,” Talal Al Mamari, CEO, Omantel, said.

Coupled with the majority of the GCC’s international submarine cables landing in Oman, all accessible from the Equinix datacentre, he believes this partnership will further enhance Oman’s competitiveness in the global digital economy.

According to the latest edition of the Global Interconnection Index (GXI), enterprise consumption of interconnection bandwidth is expected to grow at a 67 per cent annual growth rate in EMEA by 2022, outpacing other forms of business data exchange, as businesses respond to rapidly growing volumes of data.