11–20 of 21 posts
Very surprised to read google doesn't have a single datacenter in Africa. The continent is huge and if latency is important, they would definitely need multiple locations there. check this out for scale http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
Very surprised to read google doesn't have a single datacenter in Africa. The continent is huge and if latency is important, they would definitely need multiple locations there. check this out for scale http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
North America is ~9.5 million sq mi and Africa is ~11.7 million sq mi according to Wikipedia...
But I read here and on reddit that Google is evil.
Very surprised to read google doesn't have a single datacenter in Africa. The continent is huge and if latency is important, they would definitely need multiple locations there. check this out for scale http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
The reason is simple. Basic network capacity is underdeveloped. Radio waves account for the bulk of communication. And most importantly, there's little to no direct connection between neighboring countries. So even if Google built a datacenter in Africa, it would not solve latency issues and might even make it worse because virtually all requests go outside of the continent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason is simple. Basic network capacity is underdeveloped. Radio waves account for the bulk of communication. And most importantly, there's little to no direct connection between neighboring countries. So even if Google built a datacenter in Africa, it would not solve latency issues and might even make it worse because virtually all requests go outside of the continent.
Political stability is also a potential issue. If you're putting K-hundred-million dollars into a top-rate data center, risks associated with political instability become hard to stomach. Kenya is a great place to work, and quite open to outside investment, but had major problems two elections back, a scare at the last election, and ongoing problems with al-shabab. One of the best places to work in SSA, and still doe…
Very surprised to read google doesn't have a single datacenter in Africa. The continent is huge and if latency is important, they would definitely need multiple locations there. check this out for scale http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
North America is ~9.5 million sq mi and Africa is ~11.7 million sq mi according to Wikipedia...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason is simple. Basic network capacity is underdeveloped. Radio waves account for the bulk of communication. And most importantly, there's little to no direct connection between neighboring countries. So even if Google built a datacenter in Africa, it would not solve latency issues and might even make it worse because virtually all requests go outside of the continent.
So in the end it is a chicken/egg problem - no communication structure because there is nothing to transmit. No datacenter because there is no communications. But I've also read that mobile banking is MASSIVE in africa, more than the entire rest of the world combined. Plus Africa is extremely diverse, I suspect there must be several cities that could benefit from a google datacenter.