ZIMBABWE broadband users are able to utilise optimum speeds and customer service through Utande Internet Services (Pvt.) Ltd’s state-of-the-art Data Centre — a carrier neutral co-location facility, that has proven popular with numerous companies, ranging from private and public quoted companies to internet service providers (ISPs) and internet access providers (IAPs).
Utande is a subsidiary company of Dandemutande Investments (Pvt.) Ltd.
With the growing prevalence of broadband solutions for individual and business users, it is now practical for them to rely on the Data Centre to remotely access centrally hosted servers that rely on Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology to encrypt their data as it travels between them and their servers over public networks. Utande has the personnel to work with each customer’s IT team to design the optimal hosting solution for each customer.
Utande’s Data Centre is an economic way for any business to co-locate their servers in a dependable and suitable environment, saving them from having to construct a primary server room or disaster recovery room.
The tier-3 Data Centre has been established as a co-location for customers’ equipment and provision of “cloud” services.
The Data Centre backbone and MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) functions are powered by Cisco’s service provider technologies.
Businesses utilising the Data Centre, are able to minimise staff recruitment, and outsource the challenge of maintaining their own wide area network (Wan).
This ultra-modern Data Centre provides all the facilities and controls required by international best practice for disaster recovery and for secure robust business continuity for banks and other financial institutions, as well as all organisations across private and public sectors, including SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) and individuals.
Based on RBZ (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe) guidelines, Utande can assist with the disaster recovery planning process and can then implement a tailored solution which can involve either the provision of a processor and storage capacity by Utande (dedicated or shared) or hosting of the customer’s backup equipment.
The company provides remote data archiving in partnership with internationally renowned Information Technology (IT) company EMC.
EMC is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to revolutionise their operations and deliver IT as a service, by providing products for storing information, as well as enabling them to manage and protect data.
Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing which provides more than data recovery and backup, changing the way companies operate.
EMC employs more than 48 000 people worldwide and is partnered in 80 countries around the world with Utande selected as the Zimbabwe representative.
The Utande Data Centre is equipped with broad connectivity based on a variety of communications topologies, uninterruptible power supplies backed by large generators, environmental conditioning and monitoring, automatic gas based fire extinguishing, multi zone security (including plans for biometric access control), a storage area network with terabytes of disk capacity, and multiple processors and extensive rack space.
Companies building a Wan often rely on multiple carriers which can be difficult to manage and involve multiple costs. Utande can take over that burden, simplifying everything for companies so they can concentrate on their core business.
In addition, disaster recovery sites (offsite servers) that are not generally active for businesses can be housed in remote locations, such as Utande’s virtualised environment.
Rather than house their own servers or rent the maximum processing and storage capacity a company will ever need, it seems reasonable to pay for only what is used, when it needs to be used.
This frees them from capital and operations expenditure, without having to create their own server room.
This facility allows any company that is co-located in the Data Centre easy access to any of the metro fibre optic operators in Harare.
Utande’s Network Operations Centre, situated in Harare’s central business district at Pegasus House, is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with competent, professional people on hand at all times to ensure the Data Centre infrastructure and co-located equipment is kept running continuously.