The world economy has gone digital or, more specifically, shifted to digital platforms. Seven of the ten most valuable companies today are based on a platform business model where digital communities and marketplaces interact and transact.[i] Most of these companies did not start out as platform businesses but have evolved to welcome a growing array of customers, partners and services into their digital ecosystems. For example, Amazon started as a single offering online service – selling books. Today, it sells everything, including its own consumer electronic products, as well as services including book publishing services, financial services, e-commerce platform services for other online sellers, enterprise cloud services and more.
A traditional business model is one in which a company provides one or more related products and services, and then tries to attract buyers. In contrast, the chief value a platform company creates is the digital technologies that enable producers and buyers to come together. According to the World Economic Forum, an estimated 70% of new value created over the next decade will be based on digital platforms.[ii]
Unsurprisingly, three of the most valuable platform companies – Google, Microsoft and Amazon – are also major cloud service providers. Access to agile, scalable interconnected cloud infrastructures is an essential enabler for participants in the digital platform economy. In fact, the Global Interconnection Index (GXI) Volume 3, a study published by Equinix, projects that private interconnection between enterprises and cloud and IT providers will grow by 112% annually between 2018 and 2022, a strong indication that companies are turning toward cloud service providers to accelerate their digital transformation.
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Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric™) directly, securely and dynamically connects distributed infrastructure and digital ecosystems on Platform Equinix®. Establish data center-to-data center network connections on demand between any two ECX Fabric locations within a metro or globally via software-defined interconnection.
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Why hybrid multicloud for digital platforms
Today most enterprises participate in one or more digital platforms as owners, producers, partners or consumers. It is not uncommon for a business to play multiple roles as it may purchase from one platform and sell on another. However, many businesses lack the ability or capacity to tie all of these different environments and players together with direct, secure connectivity for optimal application performance and data protection.
A hybrid multicloud strategy can help solve this challenge by placing on-premises critical applications and information resources in close proximity to cloud workloads. To meet this need, Equinix and VMware have expanded their partnership to help enterprises accelerate their hybrid multicloud transformations based on VMware Cloud on Dell EMC infrastructure within Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers.
Powering up platform ecosystems with Equinix and VMware
Equinix and VMware have already been working together to enable hybrid cloud infrastructures using VMware Cloud on AWS via AWS Direct Connect. Our expanded collaboration for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC helps enterprises simplify hybrid cloud deployments and accelerate their digital transformation.
VMware Cloud on Dell EMC combines the simplicity and agility of the public cloud with the security and control of on-premises infrastructure, delivered as-a-service to data center and edge locations on Platform Equinix®. It integrates VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) compute, storage, and networking infrastructure software with Dell EMC VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure hardware to provide an innovative hybrid IT platform delivered as a fully managed VMware service. Enterprises are able to consume infrastructure in data center and edge environments on demand like a public cloud service via a hybrid cloud control plane. The solution includes fully redundant networking, compute and storage, along with VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN software appliances.
With Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™), enterprises can leverage private and secure connectivity to quickly deploy hybrid multicloud infrastructures. ECX Fabric is a software-defined interconnection solution that connects private IT infrastructure to multiple cloud platforms within minutes over high-speed, low-latency virtualized connections. It also provides access to rich digital ecosystems located at Equinix of more than 9,700 companies, including over 2,900 cloud and IT providers.
Performance matters for digital platforms
Platform businesses bring digital technologies and business ecosystems together to innovate and create new value, where performance and agility matters. Digital communities and marketplaces cannot thrive if the platform is slow or unreliable. By creating flexible hybrid multicloud infrastructures on Platform Equinix, any company can expand its market reach and grow its business exponentially while gaining the:
- Confidence of building on a reliable platform with >99.9999% average global uptime
- Ability to leverage high performance workloads with low-latency, private connections delivered in single-digit milliseconds to public cloud edge nodes
- Capability to enforce consistent security controls and policies across on-premises and cloud infrastructures
- Peace of mind leveraging integrated APIs to a software-defined network backbone available aaS on-demand
- Opportunity for lower egress from cloud charges while gaining greater efficiency and business agility
Learn how to power up your digital business with ECX Fabric and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.
[i] The Innovator, The Platform Economy, Jan 2019; CEOWorld Magazine, Top 10 largest companies in the world, 2020, April 2020.
[ii] World Economic Forum, Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and New Value Creation.
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