Virtual Data Centre (VDC)
Offerings / VDC
A virtual private cloud, secured and managed by THUSA.
A THUSA Virtual Data Centre (VDC) is a fully managed private cloud. It gives you compute, storage and networking as a cloud service, with built-in cloud security services for physical, network and access controls. Your apps run in a secure cloud that you do not have to build or replace. You pay one predictable monthly cost. It grows with the business.
VDC runs on Tier 1 high-availability architecture. Power, cooling, networking and storage are all redundant. THUSA engineers run the private cloud service around the clock: they watch it, fix problems before things break and solve issues fast. You get the reliability of an on-premises data centre. You skip the capital spend and the upkeep.
Public cloud leaves you in charge. You manage your own virtual infrastructure. A managed private cloud service works the other way: THUSA does the management work, and the platform's cloud security layer is built in. You focus on your apps and business logic.
- Operating system administration and patching
- Backup coordination
- Performance tuning
- Capacity planning
Owning a data centre means owning seven problems at once, security included.
The Infrastructure Management Challenge
None of them is the business you are in.
Capital expenditure and financial risk.
Servers, storage, networks and facilities need big money upfront. Refresh cycles then bring the same bill back every three to five years.
Capacity planning complexity.
You must forecast compute, storage and network needs three to five years ahead. Over-provision and you waste capital. Under-provision and you hit bottlenecks. A cloud service that scales on demand removes the forecast.
Technical complexity and scarce skills.
Hiring specialists across virtualisation, storage, networking and cloud integration is hard. Each gap is a single point of failure. A managed cloud service puts those skills on your side.
Operational overhead.
Firmware, patching, monitoring, backups and vendor coordination eat the time your team would rather spend on the business.
Limited redundancy.
Dual power, clustered storage and a second site are hard to justify for one organisation. So one hardware failure becomes extended downtime. A private cloud service builds the redundancy in.
Disaster recovery gaps.
Real recovery needs secondary infrastructure, replication, documented procedures and regular testing. For the leadership case, see business continuity.
Compliance and security requirements.
Regulated industries need data residency, physical security, access controls and audit trails. A private cloud with cloud security solutions built in takes that facility off your list.
VDC in numbers
Each figure carries the scope the VDC service gives it.
99.95%+
Availability is the SLA on Standard VDC, the always-on cloud service for production workloads.
2 to 3 minutes
Is the typical restart time for virtual machines (VMs) on surviving hosts after a host failure, with no data loss.
100,000+
IOPS at sub-millisecond latency is what the flash tier gives transactional workloads.
40 to 50%
Lower monthly cost is roughly what Time-of-Day VDC saves on non-production environments.
30 days, 12 weeks, 12 months
Is the typical, configurable retention for daily, weekly and monthly backups.
Case studies across sectors and outcomes
See how THUSA's managed IT services work out in practice, or browse all case studies.
Six managed layers, each redundant, one of them dedicated to cloud security services.
Core VDC Capability Areas
This is the specification your engineers will ask for.
Compute
VMware vSphere 8 and Proxmox hypervisors run in clusters, and if a host fails, its VMs restart on the surviving hosts. One lost host never costs capacity. That is the base of a private cloud you can plan around.
Item
Detail
- Hypervisors
- VMware vSphere 8 and Proxmox clusters
- Host failure
- VMs restart on surviving hosts, typically within two to three minutes, with no data loss
- Cluster sizing
- Full capacity with one host offline
- Resources
- Dedicated CPU cores, memory and IOPS per VM; reservations for critical workloads
- Operating systems
- Windows Server 2012 R2 to 2025; Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Debian; others on request
- Scaling
- Vertical or horizontal, within minutes in a maintenance window
Storage
Storage comes in three tiers, invisible to the application. Capacity grows without downtime. Snapshots restore data after errors, deletions and ransomware, so storage is part of your recovery plan as well as your capacity plan.
Item
Detail
- Flash tier
- Sub-millisecond latency, 100,000+ IOPS
- Hybrid tier
- SSD and spinning disk, for general applications
- Capacity tier
- Cost-optimised, for archives and backups
- Protection
- RAID 6 or RAID 10; survives multiple drive failures
- Paths
- Redundant controllers, automatic failover, separate SAN fabrics
- Snapshots
- Copy-on-write recovery points against errors, deletions and ransomware, with replication for critical data
- Growth
- Capacity added without downtime; pay for storage consumed
Network
Redundancy and segmentation are the default. VLANs and firewall policy separate production, development and management. Segmentation is one of the cloud security measures that keeps development apart from production, and it is cloud network security built into the service, not bolted on top.
Item
Detail
- Redundancy
- Redundant switches, routers and Internet links with automatic failover
- Segmentation
- VLANs and firewall policy as cloud security measures; DMZ for public-facing services
- Load balancing
- Health-checked, with automatic rerouting and SSL offload
- Site-to-site
- VPN or dedicated links to on-premises systems
- Internet
- Multi-ISP links, dedicated public IPs and DNS; web application firewall available as a cloud security solution
Backup and recovery
Every VM is backed up nightly. Engineers test recovery instead of assuming it. Nightly backups and tested restores both protect your data. For recovery beyond the VDC, see THUSA's disaster recovery service.
Item
Detail
- Schedule
- Nightly backup of operating system, applications and data
- Retention
- Configurable; typically 30 days daily, 12 weeks weekly, 12 months monthly
- Recovery
- File-level, full VM, or instant recovery from backup storage
- Secondary location
- Replication to separate THUSA data centres within South Africa
- Testing
- Regular restoration tests, documented for compliance
Management and monitoring
THUSA watches the platform continuously. It fixes problems before users notice, and that monitoring is part of the managed cloud service, as are the cloud security measures in the network and security layers.
Item
Detail
- Monitored
- Host health, virtualisation, storage, network, application availability
- Response
- Proactive resolution; trends drive preventative maintenance
- Optimisation
- Continuous tuning and a monthly performance review
- Capacity
- Growth tracked so the cloud service scales ahead of demand
Security and compliance
Security is built in. These are the cloud security measures built into VDC: physical, procedural and access controls, with evidence ready for the auditor. Together these cloud security services replace a facility you would otherwise have to build and certify yourself, and for defence beyond the platform, see THUSA's cyber security services.
Item
Detail
- Physical
- Perimeter security, biometric access, 24/7 personnel, video surveillance and visitor logging; access is audited
- Environmental
- Redundant cooling, UPS and generator backup
- Data residency
- Infrastructure located in South Africa, among the cloud security measures for data sovereignty
- Frameworks
- Audit trails, documentation and cloud security measures supporting ISO 27001 and POPIA
- Evidence
- Configurations, access logs, change records and backup reports as cloud security evidence for audits
Data sits where its performance and cost profile belongs. The application never knows.
Storage, in cross-section
Tiering is transparent. Engineers place and move data; applications see one volume that grows without downtime.
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Two private cloud service models: production runs all day, development does not have to.
VDC Service Models
Standard VDC
(always on):
99.95%+ availability
- Capacity available 24/7 under a guaranteed uptime SLA
- Built for production applications, databases and business-critical workloads
- Fixed monthly pricing on allocated CPU, memory and storage
Time-of-Day VDC
(scheduled):
roughly 40 to 50% lower monthly cost
- Runs in defined hours, for example 06:00 to 18:00 on weekdays
- Built for development, testing, training and non-production workloads
- Schedules are set per VM, so one environment can mix always-on and scheduled systems
A structured migration to your private cloud, non-production first.
Migration and Transition Services
-
Discovery and planning
(weeks 1 to 2):
- application inventory and dependency mapping;
- sizing and performance requirements;
- a phased or single-cutover approach;
- downtime windows and rollback procedures;
- a stakeholder communication plan
-
Infrastructure preparation
(weeks 2 to 3):
- VDC resource provisioning;
- network connectivity;
- backup configuration;
- cloud security controls;
- migration tooling
-
Application migration
(weeks 3 to 6):
- non-production workloads first, then testing;
- production in approved windows;
- checks that it all works;
- user acceptance testing;
- hypercare while things settle
-
Optimisation
(months 2 to 3):
- performance tuning;
- process refinement and documentation;
- training and knowledge transfer;
- decommissioning of replaced infrastructure
One monthly number, built from three parts you can see.
Pricing model
Resources you consume in the private cloud, management that is included, and professional services that are scoped when you need them. The same discipline runs through THUSA's approach to IT cost efficiency.
Resource-based
What it coversCPU per vCPU, memory and storage per GB (storage priced by tier), bandwidth with included allocation and overage
Management included
What it coversManaged cloud service operations: patching, monitoring, capacity planning, backup, 24/7 support and incident response
Professional services
What it coversScoped separately: migration, application optimisation, disaster recovery planning and testing, consulting
What cloud optimisation means for a VDC buyer
Cloud environments rarely become inefficient overnight. Workloads go live quickly, storage grows in steps, and temporary resources stay active after the need has passed. Cloud optimisation is the work of reducing waste, improving utilisation and strengthening governance.
THUSA sets out its cloud optimisation work under IT cost efficiency. It covers finding underused or oversized resources, simplifying overlapping cloud services and aligning workloads to demand.
A VDC includes monthly performance reviews with recommendations. Capacity growth is tracked, so infrastructure scales ahead of demand. Time-of-Day VDC is a scheduled tier for development, testing, training and non-production workloads. It runs during defined business hours and powers down outside them, and THUSA puts its monthly cost roughly 40 to 50% lower.
Six situations where owning the hardware stops making sense.
Who this is for
Replacing ageing infrastructure.
A like-for-like refresh of end-of-life servers can run from R500,000 to R5 million. They can retire into a private cloud instead.
Growing businesses.
Capacity grows without capital constraints or procurement lead times, as a cloud service should.
Multi-site operations.
Distributed offices consolidate infrastructure to cut per-site cost and complexity. They also improve availability and cloud security.
Disaster recovery requirements.
Reliable recovery, without doubling the estate or running a second facility.
Variable capacity.
Seasonal or project demand is met by scaling your private cloud service, not by committed purchases.
Compliance obligations.
Data residency and audited physical access come with the cloud security solutions THUSA supplies. Your apps run in a secure cloud, and you build no certified facility.
Start with an assessment, not a contract.
VDC assessment.
A complimentary infrastructure assessment. It covers your current environment, migration complexity, sizing recommendations and cost projections for a private cloud move.
Proof of concept.
Pilot non-production workloads in VDC to test performance and procedures before any production migration.
FAQ
What is a virtual data centre, and do I still need on-premises hardware?
A virtual data centre is a private cloud. You get compute, storage and networking as a managed cloud service, so you do not own or maintain the servers. It runs on high-availability infrastructure, with backup, monitoring and cloud security services included. End-of-life servers can retire into VDC. Systems that stay on-premises can connect by VPN or dedicated links.
Which cloud security solutions protect my data in the VDC?
Cloud security services come with VDC as built-in physical, network and access controls. VLANs and firewall policy segment the network, and a web application firewall is available as a cloud security solution. Snapshots help you recover from ransomware and error, and physical cloud security controls include perimeter security, biometric access and 24/7 security personnel. Access logs are supplied for audits.
Where is my data hosted, and does it stay in South Africa?
Cloud security starts with where the data lives. VDC infrastructure is located in South Africa, for data sovereignty requirements. Critical systems can replicate to a second South African data centre. The controls, access management, audit trails and documentation in this private cloud service support ISO 27001 and POPIA. Access logs, change records and control evidence are supplied for audits and regulatory reviews of the cloud security measures. This supports your compliance. It does not replace your own decisions.
What is the difference between a virtual private cloud and public cloud?
Public cloud leaves the virtual infrastructure with your own team. In a THUSA virtual private cloud, the management is included: operating system administration, patching, backup coordination, performance tuning and capacity planning. Resources are dedicated per VM, with reservations that guarantee performance for critical workloads. You choose the applications. THUSA runs the private cloud platform underneath them as a managed cloud service, with backup included. The platform's cloud security solutions include physical, procedural and access controls.
Stop managing IT.
Start relying on it.
Ready when you are
THUSA cuts IT downtime and lifts efficiency. Tell us about your business. Talk to a managed IT services provider that takes ownership.