Vodacom Tanzania has ordered an energy centre from Flexenclosure www.flexenclosure.com , a specialist developer of prefabricated data centres and intelligent power management systems for the ICT industry. It will power Vodacom Tanzania’s main switching centre in the capital Dar es Salaam as replacement for the energy centre that was damaged in a fire in August. The new energy centre will be divided into fire zones to minimise the risk of similar incidents in the future. To further secure trouble-free operation, a DCIM system will be used for remote management of the energy centre. 

A multi-million dollar contract has been signed between Flexenclosure and Vodacom Tanzania for the deployment of a custom-designed and fully configured energy centre. It will be deployed in July at Vodacom Tanzania’s main switching centre in the Kwale district of the capital Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the largest country in eastern Africa.

An energy centre is a vital part of any data centre – this is where the energy equipment is installed that is needed to power the network equipment. The rest of the data centre, the ”white floor area”, houses the network equipment.

Flexenclosure is providing Vodacom Tanzania with two separate and standalone eCentre energy centre modules. eCentre www.flexenclosure.com by Flexenclosure is a custom-designed, prefabricated data centre building that is fast to deploy, energy efficient and easy to expand.

“This is our first eCentre deployment in Tanzania and our third order from Vodacom in the last 18 months, following two eCentre projects for Vodacom in Mozambique,” said David King, CEO, Flexenclosure. “We are delighted to yet again be trusted with delivering state of the art telecom infrastructure solutions to the Vodacom Group in Africa, and look forward to extending our relationship yet further.”

The energy centre in the Kwale data centre in Dar es-Salaam had been damaged by a battery-related fire in August 2013. In the new and improved facility that Flexenclosure will install for Vodacom Tanzania, the energy centre will be divided into separate rooms and fire zones for increased redundancy, so as to isolate potential single points of failure and thus minimise the risk of any negative impact on business continuity in case of an accident. If there is ever another incident such as the previous fire, Vodacom Tanzania’s customers will not lose their services. To further secure trouble-free operation, a DCIM system will be used for remote management of the energy centre. 

”We are committed to providing our customers with world class services,” said Rene Meza, Managing Director, Vodacom Tanzania. “By installing Flexenclosure’s energy centre solution, we’re confident that we will never again suffer a network outage like the one we had last year.”

Vodacom Tanzania is the leading network operator in Tanzania, the largest country in east Africa with a population of close to 50 million. Tanzania still has a relatively low mobile penetration rate of slightly less than 60 per cent.