In a data-driven world, connectivity is everything: It’s the way companies exchange value with business partners, the way service providers deliver applications and services to customers, the way remote employees collaborate, the way consumers connect and share information across great distances. In fact, networking underpins almost everything about modern society and business. From an enterprise perspective, it’s fundamental for operational efficiency, innovation and business resilience.
Multicloud environments across infrastructure and software providers have become the norm for enterprises, and every company is now operating in an increasingly AI-driven reality. Change only seems to be accelerating, and businesses therefore need lots of flexibility in their networking infrastructure.
With the variety of available networking options—physical and virtual, public and private—one thing’s for sure: No single networking solution will ever fit all the requirements. Businesses need to balance network performance and operational costs while also ensuring they have the business agility they need. And that means most organizations will benefit from blending different networking options in a hybrid architecture.
Companies that invested in a particular networking solution or chose one specific type of connectivity may be limiting their own growth and efficiency. Instead, they should focus on how to get the best outcome for a given workload as well as how they can take advantage of different connectivity solutions in a hybrid networking model that maximizes flexibility and choice. Colocation facilities are uniquely positioned to offer a wide range of connectivity solutions, allowing organizations to choose the right options for their evolving needs and pivot easily as those needs change.
Let’s explore some of the common connectivity types available in a colocation facility, whether you’re connecting into a data center from outside or within the same data center.
Connecting into a data center
Every data center has connectivity coming from the outside in. This includes both private and public networking solutions that move data and workloads into the facility from other places or connect data centers to each other.
Private connectivity
Private connectivity options into data centers include:
- MPLS: Multiprotocol Label Switching, a private WAN technology that uses label-based routing
- Dark fiber: Fiber optic cables owned or leased by businesses to create a private network
- Point-to-point (P2P) Layer 2 connections: Dedicated Ethernet or fiber connections between two sites
Private networking solutions tend to offer longer contracts at a fixed price, with predictable performance, clearly defined service-level agreements (SLAs) and quality of service (QoS) mechanisms that prioritize critical traffic. They generally aren’t as flexible around bandwidth scalability as software-defined networking and public internet-based solutions.
Private connectivity solutions are often used to connect corporate sites or branches to each other or to a colocation facility. They can also be used to connect multiple data centers together, whether they’re in the same city or region, or on different continents. This is called data center interconnect (DCI).
Public connectivity
The main public connectivity option going into a colocation facility is the internet. An internet VPN is a virtual private network that creates an encrypted connection over the public internet.
The internet is generally affordable, easy to implement and offers more flexible bandwidth than private connectivity options. On the other hand, it doesn’t offer predictable performance or QoS.
Internet VPNs are often used for remote access to data center applications by employees. They can also be used to connect offices in different locations.
SD-WAN
Companies may also want to connect into a data center using multiple types of connections to take advantage of public and private connectivity. For this scenario, enterprises can connect into a data center through a software-defined wide area network, or SD-WAN, which is an overlay for private and public connectivity that helps with network management.
SD-WAN allows organizations to manage and monitor their networks and choose the best path based on a specific application, user or use case. It can be layered on top of private and public connectivity options to enable easier network management and observability.
SD-WAN is often used for connecting sites as well as direct internet and cloud access, especially in multicloud environments.
Connecting within a data center
Inside a data center, businesses and service providers need connectivity with each other. A variety of physical and digital networking solutions are available in a colocation facility for connectivity to clouds, SaaS providers, network service providers, content and media providers, and many others.
Physical connections
Physical networking solutions are great for high-bandwidth, always-on connectivity. In a colocation data center, the primary physical connectivity option is fiber cross connects, which are direct, dedicated point-to-point connection between two parties.
The unsung champion of the internet age, these physical connections are typically used to ensure ultra-low latency and guaranteed bandwidth. They offer high reliability and are thus a great fit for mission-critical workloads. When it comes to cost-per-bandwidth, cross connects are favored by enterprises. Because they require physical equipment, they can take a bit more time to set up than a virtual connection.
Physical cross connects reach their destinations in data centers through a meet-me room, which allows the data center to reuse physical cross connects many times and connect them to different destinations.
Virtual connections
Virtual networking in a colocation facility is primarily through software-defined interconnection (SDI), which refers to virtual private connections that are software-configurable. With SDI, a physical port is often used for initial access to the virtual network platform within a colocation facility, but organizations can then provision multiple connections through that one port.
Digital networking solutions like SDI have grown in popularity in the cloud era because of the speed and flexibility they offer. Businesses can spin up new connections in minutes and easily scale bandwidth up and down as needed.
Virtual connectivity is ideal when organizations need to spin up connections to clouds and service providers quickly and stay flexible for evolving requirements. They can be cost-effective and simplify management. You can think of this sort of connectivity as a digital meet-me room, where the ability to reach your destination is defined on demand by you.
Typically, virtual connections like SDI are used for multicloud connectivity, edge and branch connectivity, and connection to partners.
Equinix Fabric®, our SDI offering, helps businesses connect into the digital ecosystems already present and thriving in Equinix data centers.
Hybrid networking to maximize flexibility and choice
Enterprises have plenty to consider when choosing the right connectivity options for their needs. Costs and network performance top the list, but increasingly, the flexibility offered by any IT solution is important. There’s no one-size-fits-all connectivity solution, and businesses must find the right balance among cost, performance and flexibility for a given workload.
Given that most organizations have a hybrid multicloud architecture, the future of networking is likely to be hybrid too. In colocation facilities like the 260+ Equinix data centers around the world, businesses will find any connectivity option they need to carry their business forward.
Learn more about hybrid multicloud strategy in our white paper Thriving with a hybrid multicloud networking strategy.
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