Announcements
Let your blood save the day
Friday, 22 March, 2013 at 09:00 - Announcements
Red can symbolise a lot of things- love, courage, sacrifice, Afrihost and for our Blood Drive, red symbolises blood.
In the spirit of giving back to the nation, we’re once again teaming up with the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) to help hospitals and clinics in providing them with much needed blood supplies for blood transfusions.
Pop into our offices on 26 March between 10am and 1pm, and we’ll offer you a free Boerewors and Cold Drink just for being part of our blood drive and helping our country with this great gesture.
Please make sure you’ve had something to eat before hand so you can give blood. You can check the SANBS website for their basic blood donor criteria.
Send us an email on donateblood@afrihost.com, to make sure that you book a place to take part in this worthy cause.
All you need to know:
Place: 2 Bentley Office Park, Corner Wessel and Rivonia Roads, Rivonia
Date: 26 March 2013
Time: 10am until 1pm
Remember to bring your blood
It’s an Afrihost Shavathon
Monday, 25 February, 2013 at 12:14 - Announcements
In what has become an annual tradition for South Africans in raising cancer awareness, the CANSA Shavathon is a highly anticipated and welcomed event and Afrihost has seen it fit to take part in this years’ milestone. Celebrating its 10th year nationally, Afrihost is aiming to help CANSA make this the Shavathon of the decade.
One in four South Africans are affected by cancer personally or through family and friends. To show solidarity for those affected, we’ve decided to throw caution, or should we say our hair to the wind and take part in this symbolic event and we invite our valued clients, friends and family to join us in making a heartfelt gesture to those who are suffering from cancer and shave our heads.
We're well aware that there may be people who aren’t so keen on letting go of their hair,and for those of you who aren’t, you have the option of spraying your hair with vibrant colours or gelling it instead.
Donations or a Bail Out Fee- for those who don’t want anything done to their hair- of R25 will be collected on behalf of CANSA. Even though you may not want to do anything to your hair, giving a bit of your money can be just as meaningful. For every donation we receive, Afrihost will gladly match the amount. CANSA uses all the funds collected for cancer research, education and support programmes that benefit those who are in need.
So come join us at Afrihost HQ, for a braai and a new look.
What you need to know
Date: 1 March
Time: 10am-3pm
Venue: Afrihost HQ
2 Bentley Office Park, Corner Wessel and Rivonia Road
Donations: R25
Note: If you can't make it to Afrihost HQ but are still taking part in the Shavathon, please send through your before and after shots for our facebook page or mail them to socialmedia@afrihost.com!
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Afrihost Partners with MTN
Tuesday, 08 January, 2013 at 08:24 - Announcements
Afrihost have partnered with MTN to offer a premium ADSL service to our clients. By joining the biggest telecoms network on the continent, we have ensured the future of our products, services and clients. Over the past 3 years, MTN has been investing approximately R4 Billion annually on infrastructure upgrades to make their Broadband Services the very best on offer.
Why move to MTN?
Afrihost is one of the fastest growing ISP's (and IT sector businesses) in the country. As such, our demand for premium upstream services necessitated the move to a bigger provider. Another major reason for our move was the need to more directly manage our products and our clients; and to offer more personalized products and service, as well as better value, to our clients. MTN have recently invested heavily in their Broadband capacity, not only nationally, but internationally, with improved access on multiple undersea cables. MTN is also a company focused on the future. Aside from delivering state of the art Hosting and Broadband Services, MTN are pioneering amazing environmental and socially responsible projects throughout the country.
What do Afrihost ADSL Clients currently enjoy on the MTN Network?
We have a large amount of IPC capacity nationally on the MTN network, with more than 20Gbps of international capacity over SAT3, WACS and EASSy undersea cables. In terms of national core network infrastructure, MTN have more than 10Gbps (and more in implementation) between Johannesburg to Cape Town and more than 10Gbps linking Johannesburg to Durban. Added to this, with the National Long distance segment to Durban in its finale stages, capacity between Johannesburg and Durban becomes virtually unlimited. The IPC capacity is split between MTN's Switching Centres in New Doornfontein and Randburg (with a dedicated fibre link between them). Both Switching Centres have state-of-the-art systems, with 100% redundancy should there be any equipment failure or maintenance required to any component. The system is run by multiple traffic management systems, each individual unit capable of managing 32Gbps bandwidth. State of the art systems from the global leader in internet traffic management used by leading ISPs in America and Europe have been implemented. MTN have multiple switching centres located all over the country, so their network is fully redundant and is extremely unlikely to ever go down completely. MTN also has direct peering links to JINX (The Johannesburg Internet Exchange), the primary open peering point which most major South African ISPs use, as well as CINX in Cape Town. MTN also peers directly with many International ISPs in London (at LINX) and Amsterdam (at AMS-IX).
What's still in store for Afrihost Clients?
We are still in the process of rolling out the full network we have planned with MTN. Even though many of our clients are already reporting a much improved service, our fully deployed network will be completely mind blowing!! For the less techno savvy, here is the gist of what follows. Greater bandwidth capacity nationally, as well as local infrastructure in Durban and Cape Town, to improve service to local sites and servers. Improved international service on multiple overseas cables (based on your location) to give the best speeds and latency. Better city to city links, more efficient routing of traffic within the MTN core network, as well as a host of network upgrades and new equipment. It's Pure Internet Joy - made even better.
MTN will be installing significant amounts of local IPC capacity in Durban and Cape Town. As subscribers located in Cape Town and Durban will automatically migrate to local IPC capacity, additional capacity will become available in Johannesburg. International capacity is currently being upgraded with MTN being the first EASSy shareholder to light a 10Gbps service on the system, while WACS has already been upgraded to STM-64 (10Gbps)- this all ensures ample dedicated and guaranteed capacity for our clients.
MTN will also be continually enhancing their national infrastructure, in the short term they are adding additional capacity as follows: 10Gbps between Johannesburg and Cape Town has just been completed and another is in implementation, 10Gbps between Johannesburg and Durban is expected to be completed in December as well as 10Gbps between Cape Town and Durban expected in the first quarter of 2013.
For the best possible international service, ADSL routed via Johannesburg and Cape Town will be directed onto the WACS cable near Cape Town, while East Coast traffic will "break out" directly onto the upgraded EASSy cable near Durban.
MTN will be implementing a transparent caching system, which is widely regarded as the best platform for scalable video, media, P2P and web caching solutions, reducing network bandwidth and time to view or acquire commonly accessed media. MTN will also be introducing additional caching capacity in Cape Town, making services such as YouTube™ much more accessible and responsive for our clients. They are already in the process of deploying a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web content and applications. MTN will also introduce new BGP route reflectors to reduce downtime in the case of failure anywhere on the network to mere milliseconds.
You'll find a detailed page on the current and planned network infrastructure here.
Some more awesome stuff you may not know about MTN
We are learning more and more everyday about our network partner, and when it comes to a vision for South African IT and Telecomms, they are truly unsurpassed. With the biggest telecomms network in Africa, everything they do is geared toward the future. Here are some examples of the amazing innovations they are involved with.
MTN's Headquarters are located at their Innovation Centre in Fairland. The entire facility, including its state of the art next-gen Data Centre, is powered by their Trigeneration (TRIGEN) power plant. The R22 million project delivers 2.6 Megawatts of clean, green energy - minimising the load on municipal power, with little or no impact on the environment. Gas piped in from Mozambique is converted into electricity, as well as cooling and heating for MTN's utilities, with increased energy efficiencies of up to 85%. The Trigen project has prompted other major businesses (including banks, airports, hospitals and shopping malls) to look into cleaner, more sustainable energy. MTN's next project will be to build a similar facility at their New Doornfontein Data Centre, which houses Afrihost's main IPC and bandwidth servers, and is the soon-to-be home of Afrihost's internal system servers. The facility will represent a significant investment into downtown Johannesburg, hopefully signaling other corporates to do the same. The TRIGEN, along with other high-tech investments, put MTN's centre into the Tier 4 category (which is the most stringent and highest level of service provision) as they have a fully operational, 100% backup system - as well as diesel generators for additional failover, each capable of an additional 1.6MW of power. The plant is certified Silver Level by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), an internationally recognised green building program.
MTN's Data Centres are built to the highest possible standards, and exceed those standards significantly. MTN aims for 100% redundancy/failover on their systems. Where most providers work on the N+1 principle, e.g. if two network components are required, a provider has one spare - MTN has 2 units to spare for any possibility in this scenario. They also conform to highest security standards, as demanded by banks and credit card companies, with state of the art biometric, computerised monitoring and cameras (which are administered locally and remotely) and 24 hour security teams. Just one of their Data Centres pumps over 20,000 litres of water per day, through multiple cooling towers, to ensure that temperatures are consistent. The same facility has 3 x 1.6MW generators (originally designed to power ships!), where only one would be needed to power the entire facility.
To top it all off, MTN's Innovation Centre, as the hub of their development, testing and live environment is encased in a electronic interference resistant shell. At an incredible investment of R100,000 per square meter, MTN have ensured that their facility, and your hosted data and MTN network services, are protected from any electronic interference. In fact, should an EMP weapon ever be launched in the area, the MTN facility (and services housed there) will be unaffected! Regardless, MTN have favoured redundancy over aggregation in their approach to their network layout, so in the unlikely event that an entire data centre or switching centre should go offline, services will be uninterrupted. What some would call overkill, MTN call an essential requirement.
We're truly proud to be partnered and associated with MTN, and we look forward to many years of awesome service from them.
Afrihost is the Fastest Growing Technology Company in SA!
Tuesday, 11 December, 2012 at 12:35 - Announcements
Technology Fast 50 is a Deloitte competition that takes place annually in several countries around the world. The award recognises the 50 fastest growing technology companies, based on a variety of factors, including percentage of growth over the last 5 years. Fast 50 Awards recognise growth driven by leading intellectual property and are a celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship. The winner receives recognition from their peers and industry experts for having achieved sustainable success over the last five years.
Already in it's 15th year in other countries like the UK, this year was SA's first competition. The Fast 50 winners are also entered into the Deloitte Fast 500 competition of fasting growing technology companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
We relished the opportunity to measure ourselves against our competitors and other innovative companies in the technology sector. It was also a chance to compare our vision of empowering our clients and delivering world class service against the driving values of other competing companies.
Afrihost is extremely proud to have placed 1st in South Africa's Fast 50 division (and to be the very first SA winner of this award), and 168th in the International Fast 500 competition.
Our CEO, Gian Visser, said “This award is a great compliment to the other awards we have received, but we also hope it will inspire other companies in our sector to start looking at their clients differently, and changing the way they structure their services and business models.”
This award is a testament to the service and work ethic of the entire Afrihost team - whose dedication to our clients is the cornerstone of our business. Well done to everyone at Afrihost HQ!
You can read more about the SA Fast 50 here
An Important Letter From Gian to YOU
Wednesday, 10 October, 2012 at 09:53 - Announcements
We've re-published this letter from Gian Visser, our CEO, to all our ADSL Clients - for those who did not get to read the email, or would just like a reminder of the important points from his letter.
I've got some breaking news. And it's very important that you know about it. In my 12 years at Afrihost this has probably been the most challenging email I've written.
Why?
Because this is one of the most exciting things we've ever done and I want to make sure I communicate clearly how groundbreaking it is and exactly how it affects you. I believe the ADSL game is about to change again. In 2009 we offered ADSL data for R29 per GB when the going rate was R70. And it changed the game. Our business (and the SA Internet market) hasn't been the same since.
So what's happening?
A new ADSL network has been custom built and created for us and all of our clients. It's been crafted with love and care. Passion and precision. Our uncompromising requirements, specifications and expectations have not only been met but exceeded. Nothing's been held back. I'm confident that this new network will change the ADSL game again in South Africa
Here are the reasons why...
Your connection will be fully redundant. Local traffic is spread across multiple IPC's across the country - so even if there is a catastrophic Telkom outage in one area we can divert all traffic within minutes. The new network also uses multiple undersea cables for unparalleled international speed, stability and reliability.
So what if one of the undersea cables has an outage or gets cut?
Traffic will automatically be diverted across the other cables so you'll still be able to access international sites - you probably won't even know that anything happened!
But that's not all:
- We now have unparalleled control over every facet of each of our ADSL products.
- We have created our products to work exactly like we want them to work.
- We will now be able to control how the system prioritises traffic and we can change it if necessary.
- We are no longer reliant on our supplier controlling the way your Internet data is delivered to you across the network.
Now we control this.
What does this all mean for you?
Simply that you'll get the absolute best ADSL Internet experience possible.
So when will you start enjoying all this?
Your account will be moved to the new network this Tuesday (16th of October). You can log in to your ClientZone at anytime to see which network you are on and whether your account has been moved. Please note that this currently applies to clients who's usernames end with @afrihost.co.za, and users on @is.afrihost.co.za will be contacted separately next week.
What do you have to do?
Nothing. Your settings will stay exactly the same - your username and password will remain unchanged. We are doing all the work in the background for you.
Will your connection to the Internet be disrupted or broken?
No. Your ADSL should work all the time and the switchover should be seamless.
What if you can't connect on Tuesday?
If you find you are not able to download anything in Tuesday then switch off your router or modem for a few minutes and turn it on again - this will enable your router/modem to log you onto our new network and should fix the problem.
What changes for you?
Nothing (other than your ADSL connection is hopefully even better than usual) You still contact us in exactly the same way if you have any problems in the future
Who built and owns this new network?
MTN. We've worked very closely with them to create this network and I've been amazed by their tireless dedication and passion. They have exceeded our expectations at every turn. We're very excited to partner with MTN - without question one of the best tech companies in South Africa - to bring this groundbreaking, game-changing ADSL network to you. And we're excited to let you loose on it on Tuesday!
Will there be teething problems?
I hope and pray not! Obviously we have done everything we can to ensure it all goes as smoothly as possible. However, as you probably know, computers and anything tech-related can be unpredictable so if there are any unforeseen problems be assured we (and MTN) have our best technicians ready to leap into action if necessary.
What about the websites we host?
We are NOT moving our websites or web servers that we host. Nothing is changing to our hosting infrastructure or any of our hosting products. This new network is specifically created for ADSL users so we will only be moving our ADSL clients on Tuesday. Our web servers will stay with Internet Solutions (IS). They are a great company and we have the utmost respect for them. We are very grateful to them for the excellent service they have given us in the past and will continue to give us going forward.
If you have any questions please post your questions in the comments section and we'll answer them for you ASAP.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
We do not (and never will!) take you and your trust in us for granted.
Thank you
Gian
CEO, Afrihost
