Lumen Technologies, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure have partnered to develop ExaSwitch, a new optical interconnection ecosytem between data centers.
Exaswitch will enable on-demand, high-capacity optical connections between large, cloud peering partners across metro regions. Early adopters include Lumen, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and an additional large cloud provider.
The ExaSwitch administrator will install optical hardware at the preferred location for each participant, who will choose their own fiber source for connecting into ExaSwitch. When two participants agree to connect, they can join quickly through self-provisioning, or an API portal driven and managed by the administrator. The real-time capacity deployment allows them to easily order, modify and delete services as needed. Lumen is acting as the administrator for the initial deployments.
Highlights:
- Participants use a self-service portal to configure and turn up connectivity with other participants much faster than they can now.
- Connections are set up in 400G increments and can be consumed on demand in 100G increments, with each site capable of up to 25.6 Tbps of optical cross connects.
- Participants will have the ability to connect their edge sites, data centers and central offices in major markets to gain diversity and save costs on cross connects.
Lumen is currently operating the ExaSwitch platform in three of the largest US interconnection hubs – Chicago, Dallas and Virginia. Lumen said it plans to expand to all major markets in North America with large Internet hubs.
“Creating a geographically distributed yet automated interconnection platform creates so many options to improve connectivity, resiliency, and speed to add capacity on to one’s network,” said Frank Rey, Partner, Azure Networking, Microsoft. “We are pleased at the opportunity ExaSwitch has to change the interconnection ecosystem.”
