{"id":41884,"date":"2013-07-14T23:12:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T21:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=41884"},"modified":"2013-07-15T08:47:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T06:47:22","slug":"standard-bank-r2-billion-data-centre-bleeding-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/41884\/standard-bank-r2-billion-data-centre-bleeding-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard Bank R2 billion data centre bleeding cash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Standard Bank\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2385-Standard-Bank\">Standard Bank<\/a>&#8216;s R2.5 billion tier-4 data centre in Midrand, north of Johannesburg is believed to be bleeding money as a large chunk of it remains unused.<\/p>\n<p>According to industry sources, the bank is leaking in excess of R1 million per month in operating costs to keep the 65,000 square metre site running.<\/p>\n<p>It is also understood that Standard Bank previously tried to offload the data centre.<\/p>\n<p>Construction of the data centre was completed in April 2010 at an estimated cost of R1.6 billion, but without additional computer equipment.<\/p>\n<p>Speculation suggests that the total cost of the facility grew to over R2 billion, with a source saying that Standard Bank was looking to offload the facility at around this price.<\/p>\n<p>When BusinessTech queried Standard Bank over the future of the centre, the bank said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Standard Bank is looking at ways of commercially optimising the capacity we are not currently using. The nature of the transaction may take on many shapes so it\u2019s too early to speculate.<\/p>\n<p>The building is 65,000sqm and has eight data centre modules of 1,500 sqm each.<\/p>\n<p>The Samrand (Midrand) facility at the time of construction was the only four tier facility in the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Group deputy CEO at Standard Bank, <a title=\"Peter Wharton-Hood\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/7259-Peter-Wharton-Hood\">Peter Wharton-Hood<\/a>,\u00a0said in 2010 that, even by 2014, the bank would be using less than 50% of the available capacity at the Midrand site.<\/p>\n<p>The bank originally had its main data centre at the River the Club, near Sandton CBD.<\/p>\n<p>A Standard Bank spokesperson said that the River Club facility is now used as a recovery site, and is managed and maintained as such, having been scaled several times in the past.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41934\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Standard-Bank-data-centre-side-view.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41934\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41934\" alt=\"Standard Bank data centre in Midrand side view\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Standard-Bank-data-centre-side-view.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Standard-Bank-data-centre-side-view.jpg 600w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Standard-Bank-data-centre-side-view-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-41934\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Standard Bank data centre in Midrand side view<\/p><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Standard Bank<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Standard Bank closes WAP mobile banking\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/41139\/standard-bank-closes-wap-mobile-banking\/\"><strong>Standard Bank closes WAP mobile banking<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Forced IT retrenchments a last resort: Sasbo\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/40856\/forced-it-retrenchments-a-last-resort-sasbo\/\"><strong>Forced IT retrenchments a last resort: Sasbo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Withdrawal fees: SA banks compared\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/39307\/withdrawal-fees-sa-banks-compared\/\"><strong>Withdrawal fees: SA banks compared<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Best and worst banks in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/32357\/best-and-worst-banks-in-south-africa\/\"><strong>Best and worst banks in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Standard Bank is believed to have tried to offload its R2 billion tier-4 data centre in Midrand, north Johannesburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":41932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[911,26,499],"class_list":["post-41884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-data-centre","tag-headline","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41884"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41954,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41884\/revisions\/41954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}