Today’s enterprises have an impressive array of digital use cases to help them make more informed decisions, serve customers better, uncover hidden competitive advantages, and much more. But they can’t pursue these opportunities in a silo. They need to interconnect with many different partners and service providers to access the infrastructure, services and data that these use cases demand. Doing that inside their legacy on-premises data centers would be challenging, to say the least.
Leading digital infrastructure providers like Equinix have invested consistently in building data centers that are better equipped to support high-performance hardware and advanced applications. These facilities offer benefits such as advanced cooling to enable higher data center density and efficiency capabilities that help customers meet their sustainability goals. But no matter how good the data center itself is, it won’t count for much if it’s isolated from data sources and end users.
The advanced digital use cases that enterprises are pursuing today don’t run in any single data center nor at any single cloud provider. They require a platform of interconnected data centers across different core and edge locations, not to mention public cloud infrastructure from multiple providers. That’s why the presence of a vibrant partner ecosystem and the ability to connect with those partners quickly is what truly separates a high-performance data center from a conventional data center.
Digital businesses depend on interconnected, distributed data centers
In the past, most businesses looked at colocation data centers as simply a way to access affordable space and power. While it’s true that colocation services are often cost-effective compared to building and maintaining private data centers, savvy IT leaders recognize that there’s much more to colocation than just dollars and cents. The right colocation platform can directly contribute business value by helping enterprises build interconnected infrastructure and tap into the full power of their partner ecosystem.
For instance, a global digital infrastructure platform enables proximity to a wide variety of cloud providers in different locations throughout the world. This enables customers to ensure low-latency connectivity to the cloud providers of their choice. With the right approach to hybrid multicloud networking, they can choose different services from different providers, and change their infrastructure any time their business needs change.
Let’s take a look at a couple examples of companies that are using interconnected infrastructure to transform themselves and capitalize on digital opportunities.
Block accesses interconnected AI infrastructure
Emerging AI adoption is one factor that underscores the importance of interconnection. AI is the ultimate data-driven use case, as models can only be as good as the data we feed into them. Moving this data from many different sources to many distributed processing locations will require interconnection that’s agile and scalable.
A successful enterprise AI strategy often requires access to GPU hardware that’s able to process large datasets much faster than traditional compute infrastructure. Many enterprises are interconnecting with GPU as a Service (GPUaaS) providers to access the GPU capacity they need on demand. For those that choose to deploy their own physical GPUs, doing so inside an interconnected data center can help them optimize GPU utilization by ensuring a steady flow of data to be processed.
One company that’s using the power of interconnection to fuel their AI strategy is Block. This U.S.-based financial technology company recently announced that they will be the first company in North America to deploy the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX GB200 system, and that they will do so inside interconnected Equinix IBX® colocation data centers.
In addition to providing benefits around performance, flexibility, and data privacy/sovereignty compliance, deploying at Equinix will help Block access thousands of ecosystem partners and clouds via low-latency interconnection. This will support the company’s goal of advancing the frontier of AI by training new generative AI models with novel capabilities. The company is committed to an open-source approach to AI, and plans to share their learnings and results with the open-source community along the way.
Frontier models represent the cutting edge of artificial intelligence technology, pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve, and they require the latest in AI chips—like NVIDIA’s new DGX SuperPOD. By deploying at Equinix’s neutral, cloud-adjacent platform, companies like Block can unlock expanded compute scale and flexibility. This enables the customization of AI solutions with a choice of infrastructure, cloud, models and cooling at our neutral exchange.”- Jon Lin, Chief Business Officer, Equinix
Read the full story of Block’s partnership with NVIDIA and Equinix.
IHG optimizes customer service with software-defined networking
IHG Hotels & Resorts operates more than 6,000 properties worldwide. The company is very focused on delivering a positive experience for their guests and has worked over the last several years to transform their IT infrastructure in service of that goal.
The company recently introduced the IHG One Rewards mobile app, enrolling more than 115 million customers in the first year alone. The app is intended to deliver an exceptional experience for customers no matter where they are, whether that means helping them book their next stay or enhancing their current one. IHG recognizes that customer mobile devices are now the network edge, and they need to ensure low-latency connectivity to those devices in any location where their customers may roam.
Working with Equinix, IHG deployed a software-defined networking solution that helps them elevate the experience for customers around the world. Using Equinix Fabric®, our virtual interconnection solution, and Equinix Network Edge, our portfolio of virtual network devices from industry-leading networking and security vendors, IHG is able to seamlessly connect with partners, SaaS providers and public clouds. This enables the company to deploy new innovations without a time-consuming network rebuild.
Watch the video below to learn more about the strategic partnership between IHG and Equinix.
The right platform for interconnected infrastructure on a global scale
No matter who you want to interconnect with or where you want to do it, Equinix makes it easier. That’s because our ecosystem includes thousands of clouds, network providers and enterprises, so there’s a very good chance that the partners you’re looking for are already here at Equinix. Also, our global platform of colocation data centers includes 260+ facilities spread across six continents. This means that you can deploy in proximity to your chosen partners to support latency-sensitive use cases like AI inference.
To reach your partner ecosystem or link your own infrastructure across different locations, you can choose from our industry-leading portfolio of networking solutions. With physical Equinix Cross Connects and Equinix Fabric virtual connections, you can take a hybrid approach to networking to balance the needs of your different use cases around performance, agility, cost-efficiency, reliability, security and more. Equinix Fabric is available in 60+ metros throughout the world. You can start from any one of these metros and connect on demand to everyone and everything that matters to your business.
In addition, Equinix Fabric includes Fabric Cloud Router, our virtual routing solution designed to simplify multicloud networking. Anytime you need to move data and workloads from one cloud to another, Fabric Cloud Router allows you to route directly between local cloud availability zones, instead of hair-pinning traffic through the nearest data center. This can significantly reduce latency and open a much wider range of possible multicloud use cases.
Learn how edge computing and hybrid multicloud networking strategies—enabled by interconnected data centers throughout the world—are helping businesses minimize latency to support emerging technologies. Read our white paper The proximity paradox.
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