Equinix is utilizing Ciena’s 6500 platform in its metropolitan networks in the United States, Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific. The deployment supports 100G connectivity to Service Provider and enterprise customers today – with a path to 400G and beyond in the future.
In addition, Ciena’s V-WAN network resource broker and scheduling application, as well as its network management capabilities, lay the foundation for multi-layer SDN control.
Ciena’s coherent optical technology and software also supports the Equinix Cloud Exchange, a new service that combines the automated interconnection of cloud, network and managed service providers with advanced service orchestration, providing enterprises with simple, scalable, direct access to multiple cloud services.
Ciena said this deployment illustrates how its OPn architecture can facilitate network integration within and between the data center to transform connectivity, compute and store into a programmable platform for a variety of new services.
The Equinix Cloud Exchange gives customers the ability to create a private and secure 1Gb or 10Gb connection to transfer data between their own infrastructure and multiple cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
“Many Equinix customers are looking for the ability to expand their networks globally and they require high speed connections within a metro, or globally, between our IBX data centers. Through our relationship with Ciena, we can offer customers a dynamic and automated interface to the hundreds of network and cloud service providers inside our data centers and meet their needs for next-generation connectivity solutions,” stated Ihab Tarazi, Chief Technology Officer at Equinix.
“Enterprises and service providers today require ‘on-demand’ network capabilities, and market leaders like Equinix are in an excellent position to capitalize on this industry shift. We’ve worked closely with Equinix to design an intelligent, open and programmable network architecture that delivers elastic, high-speed, high-performance for inter- and intra- data center connectivity. Equinix Cloud Exchange customers in major markets worldwide will have access to affordable, private connectivity on demand to support their cloud and network service requirements,” said Francois Locoh-Donou, Senior Vice President, Global Products Group, Ciena.
- In April, Equinix launched its new Cloud Exchange, an advanced interconnection solution that enables seamless, on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds and multiple networks. The goal is to give enterprises direct access to services for building sophisticated hybrid cloud solutions inside Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers.
With the Equinix Cloud Exchange customers can connect to Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C. and London with planned expansions into 13 additional markets by the end of 2014. Customers can also access Amazon Web Services via the Equinix Cloud Exchange in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C. and London. In addition, Equinix is working with other key cloud and network service providers to provide access to their services via the Cloud Exchange. Equinix provides a Cloud Exchange Portal and APIs to simplify the process of managing connections to multiple cloud services. Businesses can use the Portal and APIs to allocate, monitor and provision virtual circuits in near real-time with the provisioning of those circuits automated end-to-end from the Cloud Exchange to the service provider.
Equinix expects to be serving a total of 19 markets by the end of 2014 with its Cloud Exchange.
