Dimension Data: Delivering the Hybrid IT That Africa’s Distributed, Fast-Paced Organizations Need to Succeed

Never one to back down in the face of a challenge, Dimension Data has a long track record of success using its extensive portfolio of IT solutions and services to solve complex problems.

Part of the NTT Group, Dimension Data provides enterprises throughout Africa and the Middle East with everything from a full array of cloud solutions to customized development services that build on cutting-edge advances in analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

We recently caught up with Jeff Jack, head of the company’s cloud practice, to get his thoughts on the transformative capabilities of the cloud, the importance of a hybrid approach, why it’s never been more important for companies to be agile, and the importance of network modernization.

“While we serve a vast array of industries . . . all are being asked to innovate in a world that is increasingly global, highly distributed, and blazingly fast-paced,” says Jack. “Our customers are being asked to transform their businesses digitally to quickly drive profitability while still running day-to-day operations. For most, a hybrid approach to IT that harnesses the cloud is the natural way forward, but it’s not a simple undertaking. That’s where we come in.”

Jack notes that hybrid cloud has emerged as the foundation from which enterprises can address business imperatives. In its 2021 Hybrid Cloud Report, Dimension Data found that 93.7% of global businesses see cloud as critical to meeting their business needs.

“The cloud has been the major disruptor in the IT services industry for good reason, and using a hybrid approach enables companies to take advantage of the most appropriate venues for their application workloads,” he says. “Our Virtual Data Center Platform and Private Cloud for Enterprise, both of which are VMware Cloud Verified, are two of the many ways we’re helping our customers harness the cloud to solve their core business challenges while also providing the freedom to simultaneously use the public cloud for workloads it is best suited for.”

Those challenges include the need to create powerful customer experiences, effectively support remote employees, drive business agility, maintain business continuity, and ensure the security of all systems with intelligence-driven and automated cybersecurity. All draw on the full stack of cloud solutions and services Dimension Data offers, including its fully managed services delivered from 13 state-of-the-art data centers.

Recently, the company even unveiled an interconnected data center platform that provides enterprises throughout Africa with a future-fit network fabric optimized for the hybrid cloud. Named Johannesburg 1 and scheduled to begin operations in 2022, it will create a truly interconnected marketplace that lets enterprises link to any data center, on any cloud, and through any network or Internet exchange.

“Our cloud portfolio includes everything enterprises in Africa need to accelerate their cloud journey, beginning with the migration and modernization of applications and progressing to the optimization of next-gen infrastructure,” adds Jack. “Our team takes great pride in their ability to design and implement cloud strategies that help our clients unlock their potential and become more efficient and agile. This includes not only the cloud solutions and services required, but also the improvement and modernization of the larger network.”

Jack stresses that network modernization and security acumen should be viewed as core components of any cloud transformation – and that agility is crucial.

“The pandemic revealed the importance of being agile in IT and accelerated the transformation that the network is undergoing in its own right,” he says. “It is rapidly moving to a software-defined architecture that is automated and provides deep analytics on traffic flowing across it – all of which can be used to increase operational efficiencies, improve security with real-time visibility, and uncover business insights.

“We take a flexible approach to ensure that we optimize the infrastructure that runs critical business applications regardless of whether they are managed on-premises, in private or public clouds, or through a hybrid approach. VMware is a crucial partner because it’s innovative, trusted, and proven regardless of which approach is taken.”

Learn more about Dimension Data and its partnership with VMware here.