Level 3, Equinix pact addresses need for secure path to the cloud

Level 3 Communications is giving business and government customers another way to migrate into the cloud by integrating the Equinix Cloud Exchange into its Cloud Connect Solutions ecosystem out of 80 of Equinix's data center locations.

Customers that want to deploy global public, private and hybrid cloud solutions will be able to access Equinix's International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers on four continents.

A key part of this agreement is it takes the guesswork out of the business customers' hands as they look to apply cloud services inside their organizations.

"By combining Level 3's network with the Equinix Cloud Exchange, we are making it easier for our customers to grow and improve the efficiency of their business operations with access to a broader range of cloud services," said Anthony Christie, Level 3's chief marketing officer. "With pre-established network-to-network interfaces (NNIs) from Level 3 to Equinix, combined with Level 3's dynamic bandwidth capability, customers can quickly turn up and scale their cloud solutions."

Although Level 3 has been building a sizeable cloud service business itself, working with Equinix will help it address its customers' needs to support applications and workloads distributed globally across Equinix data centers and the multiple cloud services available through the Equinix Cloud Exchange. And since many businesses aren't immediately ready to put all of their applications into the cloud, they will be able to build a hybrid cloud environment.

"Equinix has a great base of colocation clients all around the world (much bigger than Level 3's) and an impressive data center footprint," said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group, in an interview with FierceTelecom.  "In tandem with Level 3 it can provide more secure and higher performance connectivity to cloud service providers."

Dinsdale added that "The deal is all about reach and connectivity rather than cloud services themselves."

Level 3's agreement with Equinix is just one of a number of initiatives it has taken to broaden its cloud capabilities by working with partners.

In April, the service provider announced a partnership with Digital Realty Trust where it will provide the data center provider's customers in 14 U.S. and European markets access to its growing base of cloud service partners including Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services (AWS Direct Connect) and Microsoft Azure (NASDAQ: MSFT) (ExpressRoute), for example.

For more:
- see the release

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Updated article on May 30 with quotes from John Dinsdale, analyst at Synergy Research.