Teraco has introduced a new API for its Africa Cloud Exchange (ACX) enabling partners to automate cloud connectivity and enhance hybrid and multi-cloud performance across Africa.
At the same time, NAPAfrica has reached a major milestone of 6Tbps of traffic and 680 connected networks, reinforcing its role in keeping African Internet traffic local, lowering costs, and improving network performance.
Together, these developments accelerate Africa’s digital transformation by strengthening the continent’s cloud, content, and interconnection ecosystem.
The new partner API conforms to IX API standards, the globally accepted framework for Internet exchange and interconnection automation. Through this open approach, Teraco is expanding market access and enabling partners to provision ACX connections at the software level – creating virtual connections to any participant on the exchange once a physical connection is established.
Teraco’s ACX improves enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud performance by providing secure, direct, and flexible interconnection to a wide range of local and global cloud providers. ACX allows enterprises to improve cloud application performance, reduce latency and network costs, scale on demand, and deliver an enhanced cloud experience to end users.
NAPAfrica, Africa’s leading and fastest-growing Internet Exchange Point (IXP), is expanding its community-focused infrastructure to support high-performance, resilient connectivity for enterprises and networks ensuring reliable access and optimised performance for critical digital operations.
“These developments reflect Teraco’s ongoing commitment to creating a more connected and collaborative cloud ecosystem,” says Andrew Owens, Teraco Interconnection and Peering lead.
Expanding ecosystem
NAPAfrica has reached a new milestone of six terabits per second (Tbps) of traffic, driven by the continued growth and expansion of its peering community. With 680 networks peering at its exchange points, NAPAfrica continues to play a critical role in keeping African internet traffic local, reducing costs, and improving network performance.
“Increased traffic volumes between cloud providers, enterprises, and networks highlight how peering is an enabler in accelerating digital transformation across the continent,” continues Owens. “Our mission is to provide participants with access to seamless, reliable infrastructure that enables the cost-effective distribution of content across Africa. The continued growth at NAPAfrica is a testament to the continent’s vibrant Internet community, which has embraced peering, data-intensive applications, cloud adoption, and the rising demand for video, content, and gaming services.”
Most of Africa’s Internet traffic was traditionally routed through Europe, resulting in increased latency and higher costs. NAPAfrica has helped keep African traffic within the continent, leading to improved performance for ISPs, mobile operators, and enterprises while fostering a more self-sufficient African Internet ecosystem.