Galaxy Backbone (GBB), a digital transformation company in Nigeria, recently achieved Uptime Tier IV certification for its second data centre, making it the first data centre in Nigeria to obtain the Tier IV design and facility certifications.
The accomplishment signifies that GBB Data Centre’s design and facilities meet the highest international standards, ensuring high reliability and availability.
It also strengthens GBB’s capability to provide cloud, disaster recovery and business continuity services to organisations in both the public and private sectors.
Furthermore, the milestone accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation and accelerates the nation’s journey towards becoming one of the leading digital economies across the African continent.
Uptime Tier certification is one of the world’s most authoritative data centre rating systems. The certification system ranges from Tier I to Tier IV, with Tier IV being the highest. It encompasses three dimensions: design, facility and operations.
Tier IV data centres offer the highest level of redundancy and fault tolerance, achieving an availability of 99.995 per centre.
The global digital economy is booming. As Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, Nigeria has been promoting the digital economy. Recent initiatives include the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020 -2030 and the National Broadband Plan 2020 -2025.
These efforts aim to accelerate digital infrastructure construction, increase broadband penetration, narrow the digital divide and promote sustainable economic growth.
Established by the Federal Government of Nigeria, GBB provides ICT facilities and services for government ministries, departments and agencies, and is responsible for building and operating the National Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Backbone (NICTIB), a fibre optic network that spans the country and has connected nearly 30 states with high-speed fibre connectivity.
In phases 1 and 2 of the project, data centres were built in Abuja and Kano, respectively, to meet growing network demands.
Building a traditional data centre takes up to 30 months from planning and design to onsite construction, which is not conducive to rapid service rollout. After several rounds of evaluation, GBB chose Huawei. In the phase 2 of the project, GBB adopted Huawei’s FusionDC1000B prefabricated modular data centre solution.
This solution transforms the traditional sequential construction mode into one that features concurrent onsite construction and factory prefabrication, achieving fast delivery and on-demand deployment.
The data centre consists of 17 prefabricated containers and integrates multiple systems such as the smart module, modular UPS, lithium battery, data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) and iCooling.
Through engineering productisation, prefabrication and pre-commissioning, only simple hoisting and assembly are required onsite, significantly reducing onsite construction waste and achieving dust-free construction.
It takes only one month to hoist 17 containers and complete equipment installation and testing, making it the fastest construction time among local data centre projects of similar size.
Additionally, the prefabricated containers have a service life of 50 years and can withstand magnitude three earthquakes and scale 12 winds. They meet IP55 dustproof and waterproof standards, providing building-like quality and experience.
Professor Ibrahim Adeyanju, Managing Director and boss of Galaxy Backbone, said: “Achieving this Tier IV certification from Uptime Institute is a testament to our unwavering dedication to excellence in cloud, data centre and business continuity services.
“This certification assures our clients that they can rely on us for the highest levels of service availability and security. We remain committed to driving innovation and delivering world-class services to support the digital transformation of Nigeria and beyond.”
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