Born in the Cloud, Finding a Home in the Data Center

Companies that are born in the cloud  ̶  those conceived and operated on cloud platforms rather than in traditional on-premises IT infrastructure  ̶   are finding a second home in colocation data centers. Whether they are looking to expand their global footprint into new markets, leverage private interconnection to their services for their customers, or access dense cloud and SaaS ecosystems to innovate, these businesses are literally coming out of the clouds to capture new opportunities.

Coming out of the clouds

Cloud-native businesses are reliant on leading hyperscale cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in specific metro markets to deliver their innovative solutions/services, but they are seeing the value of having a greater presence in globally distributed, vendor-neutral data centers at the edge. It is there where they can get closer to distributed employees, partners and customers in a larger number of metro markets. And it is there where they can “shorten the distance” between their cloud and SaaS partners and their enterprise customers.

Though the cloud may have been a cost-effective way for these companies to get started, as they mature, they realize that staying 100% in the cloud could result in lost business opportunities. As a result, we are seeing more of these companies establish  residency in our global Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers and leverage a variety of interconnection services.

Moving to colocation and interconnection at the edge

The following customer use cases demonstrate some of the compelling reasons a cloud-native company would want to plant stakes on a global colocation and interconnection platform such as Platform Equinix®:

Global expansion of scalable, high-performance and secure unified communications

Zoom Video Communications provides a frictionless and unified communications (UC) platform for video meetings, voice, webinars and chat across desktops, phones, mobile devices and conference room systems. Zoom also helps enterprises integrate business applications and use developer tools to create customized workflows. Experiencing rapid growth, the company needed to efficiently and cost-effectively establish a presence in new global markets such as Asia-Pacific and Europe. Zoom also wanted to meet increasing customer demand for greater scalability and security, specifically in the financial services and government sectors. Zoom was in search of a partner that could help deliver direct, private interconnection to its video UC services to meet the increasing customer demand for greater scalability and security  ̶  specifically in the financial services and government sectors, which  want bypass the public internet.

As strategic partners since 2015, Zoom has leveraged the extensive Equinix colocation footprint and interconnection portfolio available through Platform Equinix to support its aggressive worldwide growth objectives. Today, Zoom is in Equinix IBX data centers in nine markets worldwide. The company has also capitalized on its reach by placing at least two data centers in each of the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions to create sites for reliable disaster-recovery backup.

Zoom was able to achieve more scalable network-peering aggregation across its global carriers through Equinix Internet Exchange™. And by harnessing Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™) software-defined interconnection, the company was able to quickly set up and scale its access to networks, clouds, partners and customers in just days. “The global Equinix team was a critical part of our solution in helping enterprises quickly connect to us worldwide,” said Alex Guerrero, Senior Manager of SaaS Operations, Zoom. “Our customers decide how they want to access our services, and more and more it is with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric.”

Expanding backup and disaster recovery as a service

Assured DP was formed in the United Kingdom by teaming up with Rubrik, a disruptor in data management, to offer an innovative cloud-based service that backs up and recovers data and applications across customer premises, hyperscaler clouds and third-party data centers. The company wanted to expand into the U.S. market and provide its optimized backup and disaster recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offering to more customers there. To scale up and extend its reach into the new region, it needed to increase its data mobility and vendor-neutral cloud access, while delivering high performance and ensuring data protection and compliance.

Th company launched its Rubrik Cloud solution in the U.S. on Platform Equinix in the Washington, D.C. metro area.  It leveraged ECX Fabric to gain greater visibility, mobility and usability by deploying proximate, low-latency virtual connections between its customers’ data and its Rubrik Cloud service. Assured DP can now reliably deliver backup and DRaaS in the U.S. by providing a separate replication point for the Rubrik Cloud at a different location than a customer’s primary data center—either the public cloud or at an Equinix IBX data center.

By placing its solution on Platform Equinix, Assured DP delivered greater value to its customers by providing fast backups and disaster recovery and business continuity on-demand. Platform Equinix also enabled the company to provide its customers with cost-effective data management and protection. Leveraging the private interconnection of ECX Fabric versus connecting to individual cloud providers over the public internet, the company is helping to reduce its customers’ data egress charges by up to 50% when recovering data from the public cloud. The Assured DP data management and backup and DRaaS offerings on Platform Equinix also employ more cost-effective object storage in the cloud, lowering its customers’ overall costs by up to 70%.

Cloud and colocation living in harmony through interconnection

Born in the cloud companies are seeing that a global colocation data center and interconnection platform, such as Equinix, can enable them to scale their solutions across markets worldwide, without physically being in the same location as their cloud and SaaS partners. They are also realizing that many of their enterprise customers do not want to risk accessing their solutions via the public internet, for either performance or security reasons. As a result, they are leveraging Equinix’s direct and secure, private interconnection solutions to eliminate those issues and deliver greater data protection and compliance to their customers.

Learn more by reading the Platform Equinix Vision paper.

You may also enjoy reading the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Colocation and Interconnection Services 2019 – 2020 Vendor Assessment.