Category Archives: Equinix

Collaboration, Companies, Equinix, VMware

VMware and Equinix expand global cloud services offering

Equinix and VMware have enhanced their global relationship to deliver new digital infrastructure and multi-cloud services. At VMware Explore 2022 Europe in Barcelona today, the companies unveiled VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal, a new distributed cloud service that will deliver a more performant, secure, and cost-effective cloud option to support enterprise applications. The service will… Read more »

The post VMware and Equinix expand global cloud services offering appeared first on Cloud Computing News.

Broadband, BT, Equinix, News & Analysis, Outage

BT outage impacts 10% of customers in capital

BT Sevenoaks workstyle buildingBT has confirmed around 10% of its customers experienced an outage this morning, which has reportedly been linked to a power incident at the former Telecity LD8 site in London, which is now owned by Equinix, reports Telecoms.com.

BT first acknowledged the outage this morning on Twitter, which took down broadband services for a number of customers in the London area.

The LD8 data centre in London’s Docklands currently houses the London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of the world’s largest Internet Exchanges with more than 700 members which include ISPs such as BT and Virgin Media, as well as content providers.

“We’re sorry that some BT and Plusnet customers experienced problems accessing some internet services this morning,” said a BT spokesperson. “Around 10% of customers’ internet usage was affected following power issues at one of our internet connection partners’ sites in London. The issue has now been fixed and services have been restored.”

While the comment has stated the problem was limited to London, BT’s service status page does indicate dozens of cities and towns across the UK experienced issues. These service challenges have not been directly linked to the same incident to date.

The LD8 data centre has been under control of Equinix over recent months since the US company acquired Telecity for $3.8 billion. Equinix claims it is now the largest retail colocation provider in Europe and globally, after the deal added 34 data centres to the portfolio, though eight assets had to be off-loaded to keep competition powers in the European Commission happy.

“Equinix can confirm that we experienced a brief outage at the former Telecity LD8 site in London earlier this morning,” said a Equinix spokesperson. “This impacted a limited number of customers, however service was restored within minutes. Equinix engineers are on site and actively working with customers to minimise the impact.”

During email exchanges with Telecoms.com, neither BT or Equinix named either party, though this is understandable as it is a sensitive issue. Despite BT stating all services have been recovered at the time of writing the service status page lists dozens of towns and cities who are still experiencing problems. Although not directly linked, as long as service problems continue BT is likely to be facing a mounting customer service challenge.

acquisition, data centre, Datacentre, Equinix, News & Analysis, Telecity

Equinix makes $874m data centre deal to keep EC happy

Equinix has announced the sale of eight data centres across Europe to Digital Realty Trust for approximately $874 million, reports Telecoms.com.

The deal forms part of a trade-off with competition authorities, as part of the agreement to acquire Telecity which was completed in January. For the acquisition to be accepted by the European Commission, eight data centres had to be relinquished by Equinix, which have now been confirmed as:

Recently acquired Telecity assets:

  • Bonnington House (London)
  • Sovereign House (London)
  • Meridian Gate (London)
  • Oliver’s Yard (London)
  • Science Park (Amsterdam)
  • Amstel Business Park I (Amsterdam)
  • Lyonerstrasse (Frankfurt)

Existing Equinix assets:

  • West Drayton data centre in London

The $3.8 billion acquisition of Telecity added 34 data centres to the Equinix portfolio, and more than doubled the company’s footprint in Europe. Equinix claims it is now the largest retail colocation provider in Europe and globally. Through the deal, Equinix opened up new markets in Dublin, Helsinki, Istanbul, Manchester, Sofia, Stockholm, and Warsaw, now totalling 145 IBX data centre facilities in 40 markets worldwide.

“Equinix’s acquisition of TelecityGroup added critical network and cloud density to better serve our global customers,” said Steve Smith, CEO at Equinix. “Completing this last milestone in the acquisition process paves the way for us to focus fully on helping our enterprise customers leverage our highly interconnected, global data centers for accelerated business performance and innovation.

“Additionally, the purchase of the Paris facilities is an important step in managing our real estate portfolio and ensuring we have the ability to add more capacity in this key market in the future.”

data centre, Datacentre, Equinix, Mobile Edge, News & Analysis

Equinix launches Data Hub solution for customers on the edge

Office worker sitting on rooftop in cityData centre company Equinix has launched its Data Hub solution to enable enterprise customers to develop large data repositories and dispense, consume and process the data at the edge.

As part of an Interconnection Oriented Architecture, the Data Hub is a bundled solution consisting of pre-configured colocation and power, combined with cloud-integrated data storage solutions, and will work in conjunction with the company’s Performance Hub solution. The company highlighted that while the Performance Hub solves for the deployment of network gear and interconnection inside Equinix data centres, Data Hub enables the deployment of IT gear integrated with Performance Hub.

The launch builds on a number of trends within the industry, including the growing volume of data utilized by enterprise organizations brought on by the implementation of IoT and big data capabilities. According to research from statista, the number of connected devices is forecast to reach 50 billion units worldwide by 2020. The company believe the healthy growth of data consumption will increase the need for organizations to re-think their existing IT infrastructure, and develop an Interconnection Oriented Architecture, at the edge.

“Data, and its exponential growth, continues to be an ongoing concern for enterprise IT,” said Lance Weaver, VP, Product Offers and Platform Strategy at Equinix. “And there is no expectation it will slow down in the near future.  To keep up with this relentless data rise, it is critical for the enterprise to rethink its IT architecture and focus on an interconnection-first strategy.  Data Hub, is the newest solution from Equinix and we are confident that it will provide our enterprise customers with the data management solutions they need today, while providing for growth tomorrow.”

The company have claimed there are a number of use cases including cloud-integrated tiered storage, big data analytics infrastructure, as well as multi-site deployment for data redundancy, allowing data to be synchronously replicated by an enterprise.

“With the explosive growth of mobile, social, cloud and big data, an enterprise data center strategy needs to evolve from merely housing servers to becoming the foundation for new data-driven business models,” said Dan Vesset, Group VP, Analytics and Information Management at research firm IDC. “Equinix, with its global platform of data centers and interconnection-first approach, offers the type of platform needed to create a flexible datacenter environment for innovation – specifically in the realm of data management at the network edge.”

AWS, Datacentre, Equinix, News & Analysis

Equinix connects AWS direct to data centres in Dallas and London

Equinix LD6Data centre operator Equinix has added an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect facility in its Dallas data centre and data centres in its London International Business Exchange (IBX).

The AWS Direct Connect facility means that companies using Equinix data centres can connect their privately owned and managed infrastructure directly to AWS, it claims. The arrangement creates a private connection to the AWS Cloud within the same infrastructure. This ‘hard-wiring’ of two infrastructures in the same building can cut costs and latency, while boosting throughput speeds and ultimately creating better application performances, Equinix says. These two offerings bring the total number of Equinix data centres offering a Direct Connect (to AWS) to 10.

The service is a response to increasing demand from clients for hybrid clouds. Equinix says it can configure this in its own data centres, through direct interconnection of the public cloud provider’s kit and the equipment belonging to clients. This Equinix-enabled hybrid is an instant way to achieve the scalability and cost benefits of the cloud, while maintaining the security and control standards offered by an on premise infrastructure.

Equinix claims that a recent study, Enterprise of the Future, found that by 2017 hybrids will double in enterprise cloud computing. According to its feedback from a study group, 84% of IT leaders will deploy IT infrastructure where interconnection, defined as direct, secure physical or virtual connections, is at the core, compared to 38% today.

London is the second Equinix location in Europe, after Frankfurt, to get an AWS Direct Connect arrangement. It means that customers can get “native” connections to AWS Cloud offerings, whereas previously they tethered from Equinix in London into AWS’s Dublin facilities. Equinix’s Dallas IBX, DA5, is the fourth data centre in North America to offer AWS Direct Connect, joining Equinix’s facilities in Seattle, Silicon Valley and Washington. Equinix now offers AWS Direct Connect in ten global locations; Dallas, Frankfurt, London, Osaka, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia. Equinix customers in these areas experience lower network costs into and out of AWS and take advantage of reduced AWS Direct Connect data transfer rates.

acquisition, Datacentre, Equinix, Europe, News & Analysis, Telecity

Equinix cleared to buy Telecity but must sell London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt facilities

datacentreThe European Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of data centre operator Telecity by rival Equinix. However, to assuage anti competition concerns, Equinix had to agree to sell off a number of data centres in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt.

BCN reported in May that Equinix and TelecityGroup agreed to the $2.35bn takeover in which US-based Equinx would buy all issued Telecity shares. The acquisition gives Equinix a stronger presence in the UK and would extend its footprint into new locations with identified cloud and interconnection needs including Dublin, Helsinki, Istanbul, Milan, Stockholm and Warsaw. Equinix provides colocation services in 33 metropolitan areas worldwide. Telecity operates data centres in 12 metropolitan areas in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Turkey.

However, the activities of Equinix and Telecity overlap in the four EEA metro areas of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Paris.

In a statement issued by the EC Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager said the growing economic importance of cloud services makes it crucial to maintain competition between data centres. However the deal does not necessarily stifle competition, Vestager said. “The Commission is satisfied that the commitments offered by Equinix will ensure that companies continue to have a choice for hosting their data at competitive prices,” said Vestager.

The Commission has concerns that the concentration of data centres controlled by one vendor could lead to higher prices of colocation services in the Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt metropolitan areas. The remaining competitors in these areas are unlikely to be able to match the competitive pressure currently exercised by Telecity, it had concluded, and new players would have faced significant difficulties to enter the market due to the high investment and deployment times needed.

To address the Commission’s concerns, Equinix submitted commitments, offering to divest a number of data centres in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt.

cloud exchange, Datacentre, Equinix, News & Analysis, Oracle

Equinix creates direct link to Oracle Cloud Services via Cloud Exchange

CloudData centre operator Equinix has agreed to give its Cloud Exchange users direct access to Oracle Cloud Service, the software vendor’s public platform for infrastructure services.

Equinix claims that Oracle users will get quicker response times and better performance as data is accelerated through its Cloud Exchanges in its Amsterdam, Chicago, London, Singapore, Sydney and Washington data centres.

It should also provide a better framework to support the hybrid cloud systems that most enterprises run, as well as solid support for migrations to the cloud, according to Oracle. “It gives Oracle’s enterprise customers the flexibility to pick the network services best suited to their diverse workloads,” said Thomas Kurian, Oracle’s president of product development.

The Oracle Cloud aims to simplify the building of new applications and migration of existing on-premises applications to the cloud. The Oracle Cloud Platform offers customers and partners the same platform as a service (PaaS) foundation upon which Oracle runs its own software as a service (SaaS) offerings. According to Oracle 19 of the world’s top 20 SaaS providers now use its Cloud service. In October it announced that Oracle Cloud Services it launched 24 additional PaaS and IaaS services.

Oracle’s 400,000 customers include all 100 of the Fortune 100 companies and it has sold 1,000 ERP systems running in the cloud. By offering direct access on Equinix Cloud Exchange, Oracle said it can create much faster connections between the on-premise systems many companies still use and the Oracle public cloud.

“The addition of Oracle Cloud to Equinix Cloud Exchange helps our customers execute on their business strategies,” said Equinix CEO Steve Smith.

Cloud is the fastest growing part of Oracle’s business. It supports 62 million users and 23 billion transactions each day. Oracle Cloud runs on 30,000 devices and 400 petabytes of storage in 19 data centres around the world.

Azure, Datacentre, Equinix, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 365, News & Analysis, Software as a service, TelecityGroup

Equinix and Telecity to offer Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365

datacentre cloudData centre operators Equinix and TelecityGroup are both now offering Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 as part of their cloud offerings. Microsoft is understood to be announcing as many as five such partnerships with data centre operators.

Co-location specialist TelecityGroup said it is offering the cloud service to three distinct types of customer, these being enterprise customers, co-location partners and a reseller channel. The reseller channel itself is broken down three groups of telcos, managed service providers and systems integrators.

The nature of the market for Office 365 is broadening, according to Adi Ayyagani, the group head of market development for TelecityGroup. “Once interest was restricted to financial services and a couple of other early adopters, but now enterprises from every vertical market are showing an interest.”

TelecityGroup is offering the Office365 service on its software defined networking Cloud-IX platform. Though a number of operators are reportedly making ExpressRoute for Office 365 available, Ayyagani claimed that the Level 3 MPLS network that underpins Cloud-IX will make all the difference. “It means customers can get the service from anywhere, it’s more robust and there’s a greater level of integration available, so that configuration of the service is a lot simpler for service providers,” said Ayyagani.

The managed service providers, telcos and systems integrators reselling the cloud service will be able to use TelecityGroup’s broad footprint to access almost any market in Europe, the Middle East or African, said Ayyagani.

Meanwhile, global data centre operator Equinix has now announced worldwide availability of the cloud version of Microsoft Office for enterprises. The service improves the levels of data privacy since ExpressRoute enables most Office 365 network traffic to avoid the public Internet. Enterprises that use ExpressRoute in an Equinix data centre also get the benefit of being able to run hybrid and multi-cloud services that didn’t previously scale well over the Internet or over typical WAN works, it says.

“Office 365 customers can now benefit from predictable network performance and the ability to better manage network availability,” said Ross Ortega, Microsoft’s Principal Program Manager for Azure Networking.

AWS, Cisco, Dell, Equinix, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, Public Cloud, Salesforce, Software as a service, Synergy Research

Public cloud generating $22 billion a quarter for IT Companies

metalcloud_lowresPublic cloud computing generated over $22 billion in revenues for IT companies in the second financial quarter of 2015, according to a study by Synergy Research Group.

The revenue breaks down into $10 billion earned by companies supplying public cloud operators with hardware, software and data centre facilities and $12 billion being generated from selling infrastructure, platforms and software as a service.

In addition the public cloud supports ‘huge’ revenue streams from a variety of internet services such as search, social networking, email and e-commerce platforms, says the report. It identifies the supply side companies with the biggest share of revenues as Cisco, HP, Dell, IBM and Equinix. On the cloud services side the market leaders are AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce, Google and IBM.

As the public cloud makes inroads into the total IT market, the hardware and software used to build public clouds now account for 24 per cent of all data centre infrastructure spending. Public cloud operators and associated digital content companies account for 47 per cent of the data centre colocation market.

While the total IT market grew at less than five per cent per year, the growth of cloud revenues outpaced it. Infrastructure and platform as a service revenues (Iaas/Paas) grew by 49 per cent in the past year and software as a service (SaaS) grew by 29 per cent.

“Public cloud is now a market that is characterized by big numbers, high growth rates and a relatively small number of global IT players,” said Synergy Research Group’s chief analyst Jeremy Duke.

However, the report noted that there is still a place for regional small-medium sized public cloud players.

Alibaba, Aliyun, Asia Pacific, Datacentre, Equinix, Infrastructure as a Service, Intel, Meeras, News & Analysis, PCCW, Singapore, Singtel

Alibaba to set up cloud datacentre, HQ in Singapore

Alibaba is adding a datacentre in Singapore, where it will also place its international HQ

Alibaba is adding a datacentre in Singapore, where it will also place its international HQ

Alibaba’s cloud computing division Aliyun revealed plans to set up a datacentre in Singapore, where it also plans to base its overseas business headquarters.

The Singapore datacentre, its seventh globally, will host the company’s growing suite of cloud services and link up with its existing datacentres in Beijing, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Silicon Valley.

“The cloud datacentre in Singapore is a key milestone in our strategy to help businesses of all sizes innovate and scale, wherever they are based, and however they choose to grow,” said Sicheng Yu, vice president of Aliyun. “Aliyun offers a unique combination of services for success in the cloud, including high-volume cloud-based transaction support and quality assurance for cloud computing services.”

Singapore will also be home to the company’s international headquarters, where its global business outside of China will be managed.

Aliyun claims demand for its cloud services is growing at a whopping 82 per cent, with revenues from its cloud services more than doubling year on year. The company said it has over 1.8 million cloud customers as of June this year.

Last month Aliyun’s parent Alibaba announced plans to plough $1bn into its cloud computing division, which cloud give it the scale it needs to compete more effectively with the likes of Amazon and Google. In addition to the Singapore datacentre, which is scheduled to go live in September this year, the company also plans to add cloud datacentres in the Middle East, Japan, and in various countries in Europe as part of that investment.

At the time the company said it also plans to use the funds to expand its partnerships through its recently announced Marketplace Alliance Program, a move that sees it partnering with large tech and datacentre operators, initially including Intel, Singtel, Meeras, Equinix and PCCW among others to help localise its cloud computing services and grow its ecosystem.