Equinix and Ciena enable on-demand Virtual Network capabilities

Equinix, Inc. has teamed with Ciena® to enable on-demand virtual network capabilities that allow service provider and enterprise customers to quickly provision high-speed, high-capacity network resources whenever they need them. Extending across the U.S., EMEA and Asia-Pacific, these “on-demand” networks allow Equinix customers to benefit from the full promise of cloud — providing access to massive amounts of compute and network resources, exactly and only when needed. For example, a video service provider can provision an on-demand, high-speed connection during a major sporting event to stream low-latency HD video and other bandwidth-intensive applications during peak demand, and then decommission the connection once the event is over, only paying for actual usage. Equinix on-demand services will be supported by a programmable SDN architecture, leveraging Ciena Optical VPN and NFV technologies as well as WaveLogic processors, giving end customers greater flexibility, control and capacity.

Continued cloud adoption is creating massive disruptions in how businesses consume IT services, which is driving significant opportunities for Equinix. The cloud infrastructure market is expected to reach $6B in 2015 while the multi-tenant data center (MTDC) market is projected to reach $26.5B in 2014, with an 18 percent compound annual growth rate, according to 451 Research. Networks are strategic to these data centers, and there is a growing demand for more sophisticated interconnection services for multiple networks and facilities.

Equinix is utilizing Ciena’s 6500 platform in its metropolitan networks in the United States, Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific providing 100G capabilities today – with a path to 400G and beyond in the future. In addition, Ciena’s V-WAN network resource broker and scheduling application as well as its network management capabilities lay the foundation for multi-layer SDN control, allowing Equinix to rapidly create and provision high-speed connections with greater agility and lower costs.

Ciena’s coherent optical technology and software also supports the Equinix Cloud Exchange, a new service that combines the automated interconnection of cloud, network and managed service providers with advanced service orchestration, providing enterprises with simple, scalable and direct access to multiple cloud services. This solution minimizes cloud lock-in and gives Equinix customers the ability to create a private and secure 1Gb or 10Gb connection to transfer data between their own infrastructure and multiple cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

As part of the Equinix Cloud Exchange fabric this deployment is an excellent example of how Ciena’s OPn® architecture can facilitate network integration within and between data centers to transform connectivity, compute and store into a programmable platform for a variety of new services.