You Need an Easier Way to Find and Connect to Ecosystem Partners

The rise of distributed AI workloads is changing the way networks function. Enterprises need connections to more endpoints in more places, and they need flexibility to change those connections quickly. But scalable, reliable connectivity alone isn’t enough. The size of the pipes is irrelevant if enterprises can’t find the right partners in the right places.

They also need to extend networks to wherever business happens—whether it’s in their partner ecosystem or across private data centers, branch offices and other edge locations. To do this, they need to cover the last mile between their core digital infrastructure and their edge sites. This is among the most complex aspects of enterprise networking, because it typically means moving into areas with fewer connectivity options.

Today, connecting distributed workloads is largely a slow and manual process. It involves:

• Finding partners and identifying endpoints
• Confirming location and availability
• Figuring out how much services cost
• Provisioning connectivity

As a result, partner discovery and last-mile connectivity have become bottlenecks that prevent enterprises from deploying AI-ready networks quickly. Many of them are now looking to replace this time-consuming process with networking solutions that offer any-to-any connectivity with cloud-like simplicity. They want the ability to quickly find partner services anywhere in the world and connect to them with a few simple clicks. They also want seamless last-mile connectivity to their edge locations, wherever they may be.

Why is it so hard to find the right partners in the right places?

Enterprises need ecosystem partners because AI requires specialized hardware and services that they may find difficult to acquire for themselves. When they can’t find the right partners, they can’t find the right models, tools and services. This will directly impact the effectiveness of their AI strategy.

Finding the right partners is challenging because of how much ecosystems have changed in recent years. In the past, most enterprises relied on a few simple cloud environments which were unlikely to change much over time. Today, they need access to a wide range of different specialists, including neoclouds, model providers, security providers and data platforms.

This creates a paradox of choice: When there are so many different service providers out there—literally thousands of different options across many different categories—trying to find the right one for the job becomes completely overwhelming.

The market for enterprise services is also shifting constantly, so the precise identity of those service providers will likely change as well. You could miss the opportunity to use a tool that would be especially helpful just because you don’t know it exists. What you need is a way to sift through all these partners and find the ones that are a good fit for your specific needs and validated to work well in your environment.

Not being able to find the right partners can directly impact business results in different ways:

• Cost-efficiency: Whether you’re talking about cloud, security, AI or networks, you shouldn’t assume that your current partners are always the most affordable option. As new providers emerge, they may be able to help you cut costs while achieving comparable results—but only if you’re able to find them.
• Security: Working with the right security providers is essential to keep up with a rapidly evolving threat landscape. This could include implementing Disaster Recovery as a Service to prevent business disruptions, protecting against DDoS attacks, or implementing AI guardrails and centralized governance.
• Sovereignty: You may need highly specialized solutions for your specific sovereignty requirements in the places you operate, and you can’t get those from just any provider. You may also need a systems integrator to help put the pieces together. If you can’t find the right partners, you may not be able to meet compliance requirements and ensure independence and control.
• Latency: We all know it’s important to ensure low-latency connectivity between distributed endpoints, and thus avoid delays in your applications. If delays last too long, users may give up and try something else. Partner discovery can impact latency in much the same way that the network itself would. After all, it doesn’t matter how good the connectivity is if you can’t find partners in proximity to your workloads.

To address the challenges of partner discovery in our rapidly changing digital world, we launched the Equinix Fabric Marketplace. Like any other kind of marketplace, it addresses both the supply and demand sides of the equation. Enterprises benefit from finding service providers quickly, while service providers benefit from potential customers finding them.

These data centers are where potential ecosystem partners interconnect, and they also serve as network hubs to connect with the company’s digital infrastructure in other parts of the world. Getting this last-mile connectivity is important, but it remains difficult for enterprises.

In the past, enterprises primarily relied on telco incumbents for their connectivity. This typically offered a straightforward ordering experience, but also created the potential for vendor lock-in. In turn, this often led to trade-offs around cost, delivery speed, and unnecessary layers of support. Today’s organizations have more options, but in turn, procurement has become more complex. It might require a lot of manual sourcing projects, time-consuming negotiations, and complex contractual procedures, all of which are hampered by a general lack of pricing transparency.

Last-mile connectivity is a challenge that enterprises absolutely must overcome to enable low-latency inference and sovereign operations. If they can’t do this, it will prevent them from maximizing the value of other investments they’ve made into AI hardware and network infrastructure.

Equinix is dedicated to reducing friction and accelerating last-mile connectivity for our customers. For instance, they can use the Equinix Fabric Marketplace to find last-mile connectivity providers in their area. Earlier this year, we announced the availability of Iceblue Global, formerly known as Resolute CS, as a provider of last-mile aggregation services. Also, Comcast Business announced that last-mile connectivity will now be available through standards-based APIs directly within Equinix Fabric®.

Case study: Expanding across operationally complex markets

Equinix and Iceblue Global partnered to provide streamlined last-mile connectivity for one customer, a global investment banking and capital markets firm. The customer needed to link their offices in India with their operations in Hong Kong. Both of these markets present unique challenges, and a local provider in either location wouldn’t be able to offer a complete, end-to-end solution.

Iceblue Global helped the customer connect into the Equinix colocation data center in Chennai. From there, the customer used Equinix Fabric to connect to our data center in Hong Kong, without needing to stand up a physical presence there. The customer was able to eliminate complexity in their last-mile procurement. They now have a globally repeatable branch-to-fabric architecture, acquired from a single provider, with pricing transparency and streamlined onboarding.

Faster partner discovery and last-mile connectivity enable optimized networking

Partner marketplaces exist so that enterprises don’t get overwhelmed by choice. Together with last-mile connectivity, this helps ensure that not being able to find and connect to a particular partner doesn’t become the bottleneck that limits the effectiveness of their networks.

Equinix Fabric Marketplace curates and organizes partners based on what they do and where they are. You can search by services or locations, and then refine results by subcategories. Whether it’s cloud, AI, last mile, or any other digital service, you can find exactly what you need to meet your business goals, even if those goals are changing consistently.

To streamline the entire procurement process, Equinix Fabric Marketplace allows you to go straight from discovering partners to connecting to them with the click of a button.

Read the product release note: Discover Fabric Marketplace Ecosystem Providers: When to Use it and What to Expect.

Or, access Equinix Fabric Marketplace today to get started.