Equinix announced the availability of the AWS Direct Connect service in the SE2 and SE3 data centers in Seattle. Now you can connect directly to Amazon Web Services (AWS), establishing a private network connection to reduce network costs, increase throughput, and deliver more consistent network performance than the public internet delivers.

“By leveraging AWS Direct Connect inside Equinix data centers, customers can take advantage of the cost savings and performance benefits of hybrid environments. As we continue to support expansion of the AWS Direct Connect service to new markets, we are removing barriers to adoption and enabling customers to deliver on the promise of cloud computing,” says Chris Sharp, General Manager for Cloud and Content at Equinix.

Existing Equinix customers can connect to AWS Direct Connect inside the Seattle data centers via a simple cross-connect that can be established in a matter of days as opposed to weeks typically needed. With a direct connection to AWS inside SE2 and SE3, customers can achieve millisecond latency between their infrastructure and AWS infrastructure, resulting in improved application performance and security.

Since the roll out of AWS Direct Connect in Equinix’s Ashburn, Virginia data center campus, AWS Direct Connect has expanded to Equinix locations in Seattle, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Equinix customers such as Badgeville, Box, Carpathia Hosting and NetApp are using AWS Direct Connect to lower network costs into and out of AWS, bypassing the public internet.

Using AWS Direct Connect, Badgeville deployed a hybrid IT model within Equinix IBX data centers. As a result, Badgeville gained control of its own infrastructure and achieved performance increases of up to 40 percent, faster API response times and a reduction in monthly cloud expenditure of approximately 40 percent.

Simultaneously, Equinix customers can now connect to the AWS GovCloud (US) from all existing AWS Direct Connect locations in North America. AWS GovCloud (US) is designed to allow US government agencies and their contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements. All of the benefits of AWS and GovCloud are now available to federal agencies and the enterprises that serve them.

Doing business in the Pacific Northwest? Looking forward to connecting to AWS? Let us know in the comments below!

By Tony Simonsen, managing director, Equinix Australia

Mobility is turning Australian data consumption into a spectator sport. As a sport loving nation, all bets are on concerning the transformative effect this unabated appetite for mobility and all its data rich platforms will have on our networks, business and society.

The Australian business sector, in particular has embraced tablet usage with gusto, with forecasts suggesting that tablet consumption in the enterprise will double in the next 12 months. A recent survey from market research group Roy Morgan found that the biggest growing sectors for tablet usage were to be found in the sectors of information media, mining and education.

The amount of information transferred over mobile networks globally, is now poised to double every year for the next six years, driven largely by users accessing more video content from platforms like tablets. Technology analysts Telsyte estimate that there are 5 million tablet users in Australia with growth projections tipped at 50% by year end.

The take-up of 4G and rollout of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) is also set to fuel the utilisation of mobile devices. Significantly, these new super-fast networks will encourage companies to look at how they can foster efficient working practices through the uptake of mobile devices.

Paving the way to a revolution at the office is the unstoppable rise of cloud hosted applications and the phenomenon of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

The rise of the mobile workforce is now an obvious benefit to many companies and their employees, as it can often lead to cost savings and a better work-life balance. As companies aid remote and mobile working they must consider which devices will best aid their workforce.

Juniper Research has forecast that the number of enterprise users implementing BYOD practices will more than double in the next two years from 150 million to 350 million globally.

Increasingly, companies will pick a device and give their employee the flexibility to tailor apps and programs, rather than choose their own handset. Again Australian enterprises and government sectors are showing a progressive spirit here.

Steve Wozniak recently wrote in Forbes that to give people the ability to work from anywhere, companies would move from ‘lite’ collaboration apps towards “all-in-one tools that fit nicely into their existing structures.”

The data center field of dreams

Another prediction Wozniak bets on is that data centers will be viewed as the star team in the data transformation game. Wozniak expects to see the “data center really stepping up to share the limelight alongside the cloud and consumerisation of IT trends that have been so hot these past few years.”

As companies are increasingly moving towards a cloud model, either as a hybrid model or private cloud, there is also a knock-on effect for data centers in terms of content that needs to be stored.

In Australia the rise of mobility is already creating  greater opportunity for new businesses. The entrepreneurial spirit is as bold as Australia’s sporting competitiveness  and mobility is helping craft the next wave of entrepreneurial ideas. If you can think of an app and possess the basic developer skills then it is likely it can be created with minimal investment.

Depending on what these apps and businesses offer, and whether the app created is a cloud or device based one, entrepreneurs will need to ensure they have the ability to cope with volumes of traffic.

It is clear that we will see more start-ups begin their life in a data center where they can easily grow and also take advantage of interconnection opportunities down the track.

The shifting network

Meanwhile, the availability of apps such as Skype on our mobile phones means that less of our mobile phone calls are going through traditional telco channels. As more consumers favour VoiP connections and stoke data consumption rates, so to the need for services such as Skype to hold up high call quality standards and data transfer speeds. Trusted data center management across the network is becoming paramount to service delivery.

The data center market in Australia is being bolstered by the growth in mobility. In turn, data center providers are become intimately attuned to the needs of the new breed of data center users that are being fostered by the mobile ecosystem. Speed and a friendly interface is the key for keeping customers and other key audiences engaged.

The extra content being created means extra storage is needed, particularly with the rise of video content. Increased data consumption on the go will also increase as mobile devices become more prevalent and companies need to ensure they are set up and flexible enough as demand increases.

Australia has always been a country for grabbing hold of the next opportunity. We are early adopters, great inventors and an incubator for many entrepreneurial ideas that have turned into some of the world’s most successful companies. Mobility in Australia has opened up the next wave of opportunity and wedded to the right infrastructure we are center field in the global data revolution.

Interested in the topic? Please read a related article on Nett Magazine.

By Chris Sharp, General Manager, Global Content & Cloud at Equinix

We’ve been spending the last few months putting our thoughts together on the cloud ecosystem we’ve seen develop at our carrier-neutral interconnection points over the years. There are now more compelling reasons than ever for your business to investigate how a cloud ecosystem can be valuable to you. We think of the cloud ecosystem as a kind of three-legged stool that can support your business, with future proofing, economic advantage and control.

Future Proofing
It’s a given that technology will change constantly. IT departments struggle to keep pace with new services and products, particularly those delivered over the Internet as services, over which they do not always have complete control. The temptation is to pick the first one that arises and stick with it. But if you want to maintain an environment that fosters creativity, growth, and innovation, you don’t want to get stuck building your entire digital strategy on the back of one vendor. A cloud ecosystem consists of multiple providers at every layer of the stack—Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Software-as-a-Service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS). With all of these components available at the shortest possible connection distance, you’ll have optimum throughput between your systems and theirs, as well as the freedom to switch providers when you needs change, practically at the flip of a switch.
We encourage you to examine the potential the cloud ecosystem provides for your company to access best-in-breed technology providers and to pick and choose the best combination of providers for accomplishing your business goals.

Economics
The economics of the cloud ecosystem present a compelling proposition that pulls together a lot of complex technology into a very simple organizational principle: the more direct access you have to the vast resources in the cloud, the more cost-effective your use of the cloud will be. Because our interconnection hubs are where telecom carriers, transport and local loop providers, content delivery networks, SaaS providers, application accelerators, and more come together to meet each other, it logically follows that the best place for companies to access and compose a palette of services from these providers is the cloud ecosystem, too.

For companies connecting to services such as Amazon Web Services or Box, it’s a no-brainer. We’re all accumulating more data faster than ever before. Storage is cheap but moving data around is not—the greater the number of connections, and longer the length of the pipe, the more companies feel the sluggish pull of what we call “data gravity.” Rather than separately running lines to each provider, you can instead run short cross-connections on high-throughput fiber within our carrier-neutral data centers. Now, companies can choose to put some workloads into the public cloud when scalability is a requirement, and use a private cloud when stability is the bigger requirement—either way, they only pay for what they use, and switching between the two is easy in the cloud ecosystem.

Take, for instance, what industry-leader Badgeville was able to achieve by directly connecting to AWS within Equinix. Badgeville moved from an all-public cloud deployment to deploying a hybrid cloud model within Equinix. As a result, the company was able to gain control of its own infrastructure and derive significant business benefits, including performance increases of up to 40 percent, faster API response times and a reduction in monthly cloud expenditure of approximately 40 percent. (Download the Badgeville case study)

The cloud ecosystem is also where vendors come shopping for new components, partners, and services, allowing them to create product “mashups” that would previously have been cost-prohibitive. That’s why companies can now get the benefit of the Chatterbox file-sharing service within SalesForce, for example.

Control
One of the biggest myths about the cloud is the idea that enterprises necessarily lose control of their data once it’s in the cloud. It’s true that public cloud outages have been scary. Content delivery networks (CDNs) were created to help content producers navigate the complexities of telecom interconnections across local, regional, national, and inter-company handoffs, but have remained a high-cost solution even as bandwidth costs have decreased. Companies that wanted to ensure visibility into and performance of their applications across global locations had to pay global providers excessive amounts to run dedicated lines to all of their endpoints.

Organizations that don’t want to accept these terms don’t have to—these are important players, but they’re not the only game in town. Customers also don’t have to buy the prix fixe—that is, buy the full range of services from a given provider—they can order a la carte. The cloud ecosystem is like a cafeteria where everything is within reach. A hybrid cloud solution composed in the cloud ecosystem lets companies build their own composite solutions with as much visibility, granularity, and control as they need, at the most efficient cost points.

Another control issue that troubles IT leaders and telecom providers alike is how to manage the explosion of mobile devices that employees, customers, and partners all want to use, and from which they expect a seamless experience, customized to each device, yet equal to the capabilities of the desktop. Today, providers are dealing with increasing user expectations of performance, data security, interdependency between applications, and multiple legacy technologies, by taking advantage of the proximities inherent in the cloud ecosystem.

A great example of a company taking control of their infrastructure and reaping great rewards is Box.net. Equinix worked closely with Box to develop a comprehensive strategy for distributing a global network of nodes, which today act as the foundation for Box Accelerator, its recently announced global data transfer network. By leveraging Equinix’s global footprint to get closer to its customers, Box is improving customer application response times by 60 percent. (Download the Box case study)

Conclusion
The CIO’s job used to be “run the data center.” Now organizations connect to all kinds of services outside of the assets they own directly. All the propositions around maintaining quality of service, all of the economics around connectivity, and all of the paradigms of control are changing. The design of an application now means designing for supporting that application in the cloud, which means providing service continuity, maintaining data access, and managing costs in a whole new way.

We think the new skills of the CIO will be honed, tested, and rewarded in the cloud ecosystem.

Beginning with “Why the Hybrid Cloud Makes Sense,” we hope you’ll investigate this white paper series, which encourages practitioners to think beyond the four walls of their data centers when trying to grapple with the demanding economic, technological, and operational issues they face in the name of delivering ever-higher performance applications to end users. (Download the white paper)

PT DCI and Equinix announced the opening of a new data center in Indonesia (JK1) to provide premium interconnection and data center services for local and global customers.

By Clement Goh, Managing Director, Equinix South Asia

The state of digital activity across the burgeoning Indonesian technology sector is in robust health across all terrains.

As an emerging market with a voracious appetite for content, the population of around 240 million has revealed itself to be not only receptive to emerging digital platforms but enthusiastic about embracing the best that the rest of the world has to offer and making it distinctively local.

Equinix’s customers are increasingly demanding capacity in Indonesia, which is one of the fastest and largest growing economies in South East Asia and viewed increasingly as a hotbed for growth from entrepreneurs to established global players.

To support this tremendous emerging market growth Equinix has partnered with PT Data Center Infrastructure Indonesia (PT DCI), to launch a new data center located at Cibitung, West Java.

Built and operated by PT DCI, the new data center – JK1 – will service the premium interconnection and data center needs of local and global clients via Platform Equinix.

The partnership, provides Indonesian customers with access to 4,000 enterprises, cloud, digital content and financial companies, including over 900 network service providers that currently are housed in Equinix data centers around the world.

A number of factors are driving demand in this fertile data landscape. The local mobile market crossed the 260 million subscriber mark last year with penetration running at just over 107%.

As such, Indonesia enjoys not only high local broadband traffic activity but also supports a constantly evolving social media and mobile app community. Digital start-up culture is thriving and is germinating from university undergraduates to the more sophisticated end of town. As broadband internet access numbers escalate rapidly in Indonesia, local traffic is surging and the government has been taking note.

The Indonesian government has shown a high degree of vigilance in aiming to protect local data and traffic while also providing high levels of security for electronic transactions.  One of the key directives from recent government regulation is that data centers and disaster recovery centers for public services must be housed in Indonesia.

Unsurprisingly the data services market in Indonesia is competitive, however fledgling players in the market are grappling with servicing the sophisticated needs of MNCs.

Indonesian content providers are experiencing unprecedented levels of high traffic from multiple streams including social media, rich media content and mobile apps. Punctuating this phenomenon is that a large proportion of this traffic is being generated from within Indonesia not offshore.

The exponential growth of mobile devices, 3G usage and faster devices means that the demand for low latency and high grade user experiences are paramount.

Digital activity has also been heightened by the Indonesian government’s proactive approach to foreign investment to stimulate the local economy and new business. Another key factor stimulating demand in the data sector is in line with the government’s laws regarding electronic information and transactions. Under the new laws financial institutions now need to maintain ownership of data transactions and the data on shore. Major financial institutions are now working on a deadline to migrate data and house it locally by next year. While there is always complexity involved in adapting to new regulatory demands, providing the right tools and infrastructure to the market can ensure that the transition is painless.

We have already seen international operators like RIM facing problems in Indonesia with their lack of local data housing compliance.

With many Indonesian service providers being local there is a strong rising demand for international experience and guidance. Equinix’s local data center investment and local partnerships allow us to share our global expertise and enable local players to take advantage of a proven solution.

As part of the partnership Equinix has provided extensive advisory support to PT DCI in the design and operations of the data center. The alliance means that DCI and its Indonesian and global customers will receive the same services, support and reliability they would experience in other Equinix IBX data centers globally.

PT DCI has implemented disaster recovery response measures to comply with regulatory guidelines for disaster recovery and continuity of operations.

Investing in local infrastructure is about raising the bar for all the players in the market. With Equinix’s new data center facilities we are raising the standard and making sure that our operations set a world class standard for data services and delivery which will keep the industry vibrant, competitive and adaptive to excellence.

The launch party for our latest data center, DC11 in Ashburn, was a huge hit. Appearances from NFL Hall of Fame cornerback Darrell Green among others. Get the full story here.

Check out some photos of the event below! (Or visit Flickr for the full set if you dare!)

Lovely, warm evening for an outdoor event. Storms threatened all week but held off!

Getting setup before the onslaught of guests.

Over 400 guests arrived for an evening of food, music, fun, and of course DC11 tours.

Your tour guides looking sharp in their red Equinix polos.

NFL Hall of Fame cornerback Darrell Green taking his tour. NOTE: Darrell Green is NOT the tall gentlemen in the Darrell Green jersey.

Darrell Green and Equinix CEO Steve Smith doing their secret handshake.

The band for the evening.

Lots of compliments on the food. Here we have “shrimp ‘n grits”.

Darrell Green presenting one lucky guest with an autographed football.

Legendary radio personalty Buddy Rizer presents Equinix CEO Steve Smith with an award.

Great presentation from Darrell Green. The man speaks from the heart.

Another lucky guest wins an autographed Darrell Green jersey.

More giveaways!

These two girls OWNED the red carpet.

And the brilliant Equinix team who brought you this fine event!

By Eric Hui, Director of Cloud, IT and Enterprise, Equinix, Asia Pacific

It’s becoming very apparent that Australia is shaping up to be the market to watch in the year ahead on a number of data intensive levels.

Cloud adoption
When Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched in Australia late last year, selecting Sydney as the ninth international region to deploy its global cloud computing platform, it signified that Australia was coming-of-age in terms of cloud. Gartner claims that around 30 to 40% of organizations in Australia have already put in some of the groundwork for cloud computing principles, with most of the investment from the enterprise sector coming from private cloud adoption. In Australia, Equinix Sydney is supporting AWS Direct Connect offering.

The launch in Australia followed AWS’s existing presence in both the Singapore and Tokyo regions – two of the most advanced markets for cloud services in Asia Pacific. The Sydney destination shows that the public cloud infrastructure giant certainly knows where demand will flourish.

A hot topic in the realm of public cloud has been around security and in Australia like every market there are deep concerns about data privacy. Equinix has recently addressed these concerns by introducing the availability of NetApp Private Storage for AWS in Equinix IBX data centers where AWS Direct Connect is deployed including Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo as well as Silicon Valley and Ashburn Virginia in the United States. This allows organizations to balance private and public cloud resources to best meet their business needs. This hybrid cloud model addresses some security requirements so that data remains private but can utilize low latency public cloud compute resources.

Introduction of National Broadband Network (NBN)
With the advent of the NBN and the cost efficiencies of cloud platforms, organizations in Australia are currently planning for their data center needs for the next decade…now.

The NBN has provided an enormous boost to data center market activity with industry estimates forecasting AUD 5 billion investment over the next 3-5 years. The NBN efforts foster more speed, more reliable connections, and more coverage, which contribute to better user experience for cloud and mobility. It will also stimulate data center investment outside of the capital cities where it is now mostly concentrated.

The rise of mobile data
In Australia, we are seeing a big rise in data only mobile plans. This is a clear indicator that mobile computing is getting more widely adopted. Business models are increasingly mobile, customers want to be device agnostic and accessing data on the fly. These trends are clearly indicators to drive cloud, and the underlying infrastructures need to be increasingly tailored for mobile cloud workloads. Virtualization, cloud management and security will be increasingly important in inter-cloud network architectures.

These are a great confluence of factors for the rise of innovative data infrastructure services and data center growth. Gartner is forecasting spend on data center hardware in Australia to hit AUD 2.09 billion (USD 2.19 billion) this year.

With the advent of a myriad of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers entering the market the burgeoning ecosystem needs a stable and welcoming policy to encourage healthy competition and attract offshore providers to open up locally.

All the key indicators that create innovation for a cloud-ready market are emerging in strength down under. From ready investment in infrastructure, a robust and growing content industry, government policy that supports infrastructure stimulation and a thriving ecosystem of developers and systems integrators – Australia is looking good from a regional and global perspective.

At Equinix, we will continue to innovate and operate a “platform of choice” for cloud service providers and Australia enterprise cloud users. For those IT organizations evaluating cloud on-boarding options, we encourage them to explore more about hybrid cloud models. This model combines the benefits of private cloud and public cloud i.e. controllability with flexibility and scalability. Equinix, along with our technology and solutions partner, is helping customers power their DNA (Data, Network, Applications).

JK1, Equinix’s first partner data center in Indonesia, was officially opened on Tuesday, May 14.

Located at a prime industry complex within West Java, the new data center will provide significant capacity of approximately 65,000 gross square feet. Built and operated by PT DCI, the new data center will provide premium interconnection and data center services for local and global customers through Platform Equinix.

The opening ceremony was officiated by Djoko Agung, Secretary General for Directorate General of Informatics Applications, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Republic of Indonesia; Andrew Rigoli, VP Corporate Development and Strategy, Equinix; Clement Goh, Managing Director, Equinix South Asia as well as the management of PT DCI.

At the event, media toured the new data center and held interviews with our partner and ourselves.

DC11, the latest addition to our Washington, D.C. metro area data center facilities, opened its doors on May 9 with much fanfare. This is an important site for Equinix and our customers – more than 90% of the world’s Internet traffic goes through this campus – so the addition of a 42,000-square-foot facility with room to grow gave us good reason to celebrate.

At the launch, Equinix Solution Architects were on hand to lead tours and answer questions for new customers as well as existing ones looking to expand. DC11, with its dim blue overhead lights and color-coded cabling systems, has a very Mission Impossible feel to it; tour guides led guests through the adjacent DC6 facility to demonstrate what an occupied Equinix facility looks like.

“It’s all about space and power,” explained Equinix sales engineer Tom Minogue as he pointed out the massive generators and cooling and fire-prevention features that every Equinix International Business Exchange TM (IBX®) features. “Well, space, power and cross connects.” In fact, there are more than 10,000 cross connects at our DC campus, creating a thriving ecosystem of business partners, content providers, networks, carriers and Internet service providers. Tours also included a look at the meeting rooms and relaxation spaces Equinix makes available to our customers – complete with showers, video games and vending machines that are essential when technicians are working on-site.

With its proximity to federal agency headquarters, security is a top priority at our DC campus: it takes five hand scans to get into a facility, and there are back-to-back man traps, industrial-strength perimeter fences, 24×7 guards and cameras everywhere.

In addition to touring the new facility, guests were treated to some true Virginian hospitality at the launch – southern-style cuisine featuring shrimp and grits and chicken waffles, a number of wine varietals from a local Virginia winemaker, and live music. NFL Hall of Famer and former Washington Redskins cornerback Darrell Green was on hand to make guests feel welcome.

The future looks bright for our Washington, DC campus. Customers are already prepping cages in DC11, which has enough space for 1,200 cabinets and is next to our existing data centers in Ashburn, VA. We’ve secured 40 acres of vacant land adjacent to DC11 that will allow for 1,800 cabinet equivalents in the future, so we can expand with our customers and continue to help them accelerate business performance. Our Washington, DC, IBXs are among the world’s most networked data centers – how could your business benefit from connecting there?

The Washington, DC area plays an important role as a strategic hub for IP traffic exchange across the Eastern U.S. and as a communications gateway to Europe. To support growing network traffic in this area, Equinix has opened the latest addition to our IBX data centers, DC11.

This is our eighth facility in the Washington, DC area since Equinix first established a presence here in 1999. With DC11, we’ve expanded the largest Internet exchange in North America while extending the industry-leading capabilities of Platform Equinix where more than 4,000 companies choose to run and grow their businesses.

To find out more about DC11 and the Ashburn campus, I spoke with Equinix resident data center guru Jim Farmer, Director – Americas Marketing.

So give us the DC11 overview

The newest edition to our massive Ashburn campus, DC11, is basically an extension of the campus. We built our newest IBX to stay ahead of the current demand. Equinix purchased 40 acres very close by the campus for projected demand.

How is DC11 unique?

A couple factors: The high density of networks. Close to 200 networks are connected there on the campus. Which represents roughly 10,000 cross connects on the campus! That speaks highly for the desire for interconnectivity, but also speaks of the robustness of the ecosystems that lives there. Whether you need a local, regional, or international network provider, they’ll all be in our Ashburn campus.

There’s a large concentration of cloud service providers in the Equinix Ashburn campus. Which is very significant to the ever growing demand on outsourced business services. With the recent announce of NetApp for Amazon Direct Connect at Equinix, represents another chapter in our customers evolving economical business models that leverage the value of Equinix. More importantly, the continued success story of the Ashburn campus and DC11.

There are several Ad-IX exchanges that have ignited a whole new way of serving the advertising and media business community. Leveraging the high concentration of quality global networks at the Ashburn campus, new video exchanges, banner exchanges, and online advertising are growing and proliferating at an accelerated rate. Advertising Exchanges are the newest development of ecosystems that are flourishing at the Ashburn campus. Simply said, this is a one of the newest reasons why customers are using the Equinix Ashburn campus.

Lots of data going through the Equinix campus?

It’s the largest peering point in North America of IP traffic. Somewhere around 400 gigs of IP traffic, that’s globally significant. That’s another reason why Ashburn is considered the centralize hub of connectivity. A true testament of why we’re staying ahead of the demand curve- because it’s there! Our value proposition is exceptionally strong,” the Epicenter of Connectivity for North America”.

For all of our customers, the entire campus is a cross connect away to reach buyers, sellers and partners! All the campus buildings are interconnected together. We look at DC11 as an extension of the campus. If a network provider is in DC6 and a cloud provider is in DC11, they can easily cross connect to each other. Or if an enterprise wanted to use Amazon Web Services public cloud offering, once again… it’s only cross connect away on the whole campus. This is very powerful in terms of efficient compute power and storage and is a clear business reason why our customers choose Equinix! The is a dynamic combination of proximity and performance!

So it’s like an expansion on a house?

It’s more like a new wing on a mansion.

[Laughs] SE3 in Seattle was all about being your portal to Asia. DC11 is all about the fact that EVERYONE is here, and you should be too.

That’s right. The Seattle and DC markets are different. Seattle has a high concentration of cloud and content providers and networks. There you have trans-Pacific cables, where you can reach the Asia-Pacific market. While the Equinix campus is known as the IP hub of the mid-Atlantic seaboard, it is the largest IP traffic hub in North America and the gateway to Europe.

What’s new about the DC11 building itself?

We always employ the newest infrastructure technology that makes the data center run more efficiently. DC11 very green. For example, we have open air ventilators that optimize the cool, ambient air from outside when the condition are right! This translates to reduced operating costs and being environmentally friendly corporate citizen.

We also use cold aisle containment, it’s very effective for two ways – we’re not cooling warm air, and we’re not re-cooling cool air. So our data centers are highly efficient. These type of technologies are becoming more standardized as we build our data centers.

Is there stricter security since we’re just outside the nation’s capital?

Yes. We’ve increased our security standards by installing a large security fence all around the perimeter. We’ve beefed it up with security personal onsite and more external monitoring. Let’s just say it’s very secure. [laughs]

What’s the history of the Ashburn campus?

It started with one building. DC1 in about 1999. It was one of Equinix’s first data centers ever. We provided colocation services, peering and access to lots of networks. And that model still exists today. The core value proposition has really not changed over time. What has changed is the way customers buy, and what they buy. Ashburn campus went from networks connecting to networks, to enterprises connecting to networks, to enterprises connecting to cloud, financial, and the list continues on and on….

Final thoughts, Jim?

Equinix…The Epicenter of Connectivity!!!!!

Feast your eyes on this gorgeous infographic about DC11 and the surrounding campus. (click image to zoom in)