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Equinix is poised to steal Prosimo and Aviatrix's lunch by taking its interconnection expertise to the next level
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Unlike the multi-cloud routers offered by its rivals, Equinix said its Cloud Router provides a private network connection rather than running on the public internet
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The release comes at a time when enterprises are actively seeking solutions to multi-cloud headaches
Red Hat. VMware. Prosimo. Alkira. Aviatrix. The world is starting to feel cluttered with multi-cloud solutions. But Equinix promises this one is different.
In fact, Arun Dev, VP of Digital Interconnnection at Equinix, told Silverlinings the company spent two years developing its new Fabric Cloud Router, a virtual routing service akin to offerings from Aviatrix, Alkira, Prosimo and Console Connect which are designed to connect disparate enterprise cloud assets.
The rollout comes at a time when enterprises are desperately seeking solutions to ease multi-cloud complexity.
“Certainly the need to connect to multiple different public clouds has dramatically increased over the past three or four years," Bob Laliberte, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, told Silverlinings by email.
"Our research shows that 94% use multiple different IaaS providers, with more than half using them in a meaningful way (as opposed to having one primary cloud and kicking the tires with the others). Combined with SaaS access, this is a significant concern for organizations," Laliberte said.
Equinix is in a prime position to answer the call. The 250 data centers and co-location facilities it is known for are exactly what makes it capable of providing smooth connections to AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle and a range of third party SaaS solutions. Indeed, it already launched Equinix Fabric, a software-defined interconnection service, back in 2018.
The headline features of the new Cloud Router tool cover much of what you'd expect from any announcement these days: lower latency! More bandwidth! Faster deployment (in under a minute, no less)!
Dev added that Cloud Router isn't a virtual machine but instead a Layer 3 tool built directly on Equinix's switching hardware, which provides bonus points when it comes to availability and resilience.
A secret sauce
But there's one other key bit lurking. The connections Equinix is peddling are made over a private network rather than the public internet.
Private connectivity obviously means more security and control over the flow of data, which is important for organizations operating in regulated industries or with data sovereignty requirements.
But it notably also means large organizations can cut down on dreaded egress fees, since hyperscalers tend to charge lower rates for data transferred over private networks rather than the public internet, Dev said.
Take that Google Cloud — maybe Equinix is one-upping you on your exit from egress fees.