Oracle Goes to South Africa

Oracle has joined peers AWS and Microsoft in launching a data center in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Oracle, and its channel partners, now can provision cloud services throughout the country. Indeed, South Africa is fast becoming a major cloud computing consumer. More banks and telecom firms are demanding the capabilities. Partners, too, are focusing more on the country. Still, it’s a hard place to operate because of infrastructure challenges, including higher electricity prices and frequent power cuts, Reuters noted.

This latest data center marks Oracle’s 37th. The company plans to open 44 more this year alone throughout the world as it seeks to compete against AWS, Microsoft and Google (providers with which it also partners). Oracle isn’t setting its sights on other parts of South Africa, but it could open more cloud regions in West Africa in 2023, a representative told Reuters.

Expect a variety of cloud computing providers to keep opening more data centers around the globe. Soaring demand is pushing vendors to expand, especially to locations close to users, in efforts to reduce latency.