New Entrance to Equinix MI1 Now Under Construction
In our blog, “Why Miami is Latin America’s Center of Interconnection,” we talk about how Equinix MI1, or the Network Access Point (NAP) of the Americas, is the primary U.S. interconnection point from North America to the LATAM and Caribbean (LA&C) markets. We are celebrating the launch of the nearly $60 million expansion to our MI1 facility on the Equinix Miami campus. Today, MI1 is one of the most interconnected gateway data centers in the U.S., offering unsurpassed connectivity options to LA&C markets. It is where domestic and international companies, service providers and government agencies can gain access to rich ecosystems of enterprises and network, cloud and SaaS providers under one roof.
More global capacity than ever before
When the six-story MI1 building was purchased as part of Equinix’ acquisition of 29 data centers from Verizon in 2017, it was viewed as one of the crown jewels of that deal. With its total capacity of 750,000 sq. ft., we always intended that this facility would enable us to double down on our commitment to provide the world-class carrier-neutral hub, where enterprises and service providers could meet and exchange traffic on a single reliable, secure, high-value interconnection and colocation platform. The big differentiator for MI1 is the breadth and depth of the global markets it interconnects and the valuable digital and business ecosystems that its customers can access worldwide. High in demand, this expansion delivers substantial additional capacity for our customers at the NAP of the Americas.
The MI1 expansion includes the completion of the first phase of the 5th floor buildout (the first four floors were already up and running with customer data center space available on floors 2 through 4) and the renovation of the ground floor. Targeted for completion in February 2019, the new entrance and lobby will reflect the Equinix brand and improve the function of the customer security area. This expansion also increases the building capacity of MI1 by 1,093 cabinets to a total of 6,489 cabinets, and brings online an additional 4 MW of UPS backed power. Customers needing larger footprints, for example 100 cabinets, can now find a home in MI1 with enough capacity and power to satisfy their needs for many years to come.
Greater global reach than ever before
MI1 also brings together diverse and dense interconnectivity from more than 130 telecommunications carriers, with 47% based in LA&C markets. Seven Tier 1 network service providers (NSPs) deliver our customers upstream access to the global internet and unlimited private interconnection between businesses. Equinix also provides termination points for several international subsea cable systems between North America and Brazil, including Monet and GlobeNet in its MI3 facility, which can be accessed from MI1, or any other facility in the Equinix Miami campus via 38 high-speed dark fiber backbones. With a wide selection of domestic fiber backbones in our Miami facilities, we are able to provide unsurpassed performance and access, as well as quickly add any carrier required by our downstream customers. Carrying the majority of LA&C traffic bound to more than 148 countries in the world makes MI1 the unrivaled global gateway. This convergence of telecommunications infrastructure is why global carriers, internet, cloud and SaaS providers, and leading enterprises call MI1 home to their mission-critical IT infrastructures.
Florida Subsea Cable System Landing Stations
Cloud and SaaS gravity and transparent access
In addition to accessing a dense ecosystem of NSPs conveniently and reliably from one location, MI1 is a hub for leading cloud (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform to name a few) and SaaS providers. Even if you are not in the same Equinix facility as your CSP or SaaS vendor of choice, you can seamlessly access them via the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™) between participating Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers . This enables the creation of high-performance hybrid and multicloud infrastructures for businesses that need to maintain legacy IT infrastructures for security, control or compliance requirements. It also provides secure access to the more scalable, agile and cost-effective capabilities of cloud platforms, with the flexibility to easily move workloads between cloud providers.
The global gateway to Latin America
Prior to Equinix acquiring MI1, the facility had a 16-year history of connecting the world to the LA&C market, starting in 2001 when a partnership between Telcordia and Terremark opened MI1 as an East Coast gateway to leverage the enormous amount of international undersea fiber that had been installed in the late-90s. Today, MI1 provides North American-based businesses and multinationals the most access to the LA&C markets, with the largest and most mature ecosystem of NSPs, CSPs, SaaS providers and enterprise customers in the region. As an international gateway, on Equinix’s global platform, MI1 also extends this value proposition to companies in APAC and EMEA.
Today, LATAM is an emerging growth market for many businesses around the world. According to the Global Interconnection Index, Volume 1, published annually by Equinix, the LATAM region’s Interconnection Bandwidth ꟷ the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic with a diverse set of counterparties and providers at distributed IT exchange points ꟷ is expected to grow at a rate of 62% year-over-year between 2016 -2020. It is no surprise that the top two use cases in LATAM for both enterprises and service providers are: 1) interconnecting to NSPs and 2) interconnecting to cloud and IT providers. The banking and insurance, cloud IT services, and content and digital media industries make up the three top consumers of Interconnection Bandwidth capacity in LATAM. This represents a tremendous growth opportunity for domestic and multinational LATAM-based companies.
Today, MI1 houses 600 unique customers with an 80/20 percent mix of enterprise and telecommunication carrier clients. Currently there are more than 140 Equinix employees supporting those customers with more than 50 of them working 24 x 7 in operations to deliver the secure, reliable infrastructure on which our customers depend. In our next stage of the MI1 expansion, we plan to complete the second phase of our 5th floor buildout and provide even greater capacity and access within the most globally, interconnected data center campus in North America.
The greatest benefit of leveraging Platform Equinix® at the NAP of the Americas for companies wanting access to LA&C markets from anywhere in the world is the opportunity to gain unparalleled performance, security, scalability and reliability from a single, vendor-neutral interconnection and colocation platform. To learn more about how your company can reach everywhere, interconnect everyone and integrate everything, check out our Platform Equinix Vision paper.
Learn more about our Miami data centers. Enjoy some photos from the MI1 launch event below.
Americas President, Karl Strohmeyer, welcomes the attendees for the NAP of the Americas expansion event.
Karl speaks with Equinix customers on the importance of digital transformation. Left to right: Karl Strohmeyer – Richard Delisser, VP Global Infrastructure, World Fuel – Stan Black, CIO, Citrix.
Over 300 attendees celebrate the expansion of the NAP of the Americas.
Demonstrating Equinix’s community involvement, Karl Strohmeyer presents a donation to Mimi Pink, Lotus House Community Outreach Director. Lotus House is an organization dedicated to improving the lives of homeless women, youth and children.
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