Fastly, an “edge cloud” platform, has expanded to South Africa through global network service provider Workonline Communications and data centre operator Teraco, the companies said on Friday.
Fastly, which offers businesses “fast, secure and scalable” online services, has been expanding its network globally to support increasing real-time Web, application and API (application programming interface) content delivery traffic. Clients include companies such as Airbnb, The New York Times and Ticketmaster.
It’s the company’s first entry into Africa — it already services markets in North America, Latin America, Europe and Australasia.
“We realise the importance and the benefits of a content delivery network (CDN) deploying in our market, particularly in terms of improved quality and cost reduction,” said Workonline director of business development Edward Lawrence. “Major CDNs like Fastly’s offering add enormous potential to the development of the local market as a whole.”
Workonline said CDNs are an essential tool to conducting business online, as the Internet was not originally built to handle the demands of massive amounts of data, including high-definition video and large file downloads that have now become the standard. They ensure that the Internet works better, delivering media at scale, and enabling a better experience for the end user.
Fastly has deployed a “MegaPOP” in Teraco’s Johannesburg data centre, promising reduced latency and improved performance for Internet users in South Africa and neighbouring countries.
“Fastly provides a CDN service to digital organisations like BuzzFeed, Pinterest, Shopify, Shazam and Alaska Airlines from key access points on the Internet. This … reduces network transit time when delivering content to end users who are now able to enjoy a richer experience from these online organisations,” said Michele McCann, head of business development at Teraco.
Other clients of Fastly include Vimeo and The Guardian.
According to its website, Fastly offers South African businesses access at a cost of US$0,28 (R3,69) for the first 10TB of data used plus $0,016 (21c) per 10 000 user requests. Bandwidth for content delivery and streaming delivery is measured in gigabytes delivered from Fastly caches by region. Rate reductions are automatically applied with greater usage. — © 2017 NewsCentral Media
