Enterprises are increasingly moving towards a hybrid model of private and public cloud.
According to a survey by Gartner, 80% of enterprises will have shut down their traditional data centres by 2025.
Instead of resorting to build an interconnected network of data centres themselves, they now rely on outsourced network fabrics delivered by software-defined networking (SDN) technologies for their connectivity needs.
As such, many businesses today are adopting SDN fabrics for interconnecting data centres and public clouds. However, not all are capable of delivering diverse connectivity options across global data centre footprints and cloud service providers (CSP) without physical limitations.
Going Beyond Legacy Data Centre Interconnection
The challenge for enterprises is to make the transition from traditional data centre interconnects (DCI) to being able to interconnect data centre infrastructure around the world seamlessly. This means they will need a connectivity model that is scalable, flexible and ready to adapt to new and changing demands.
Businesses cannot afford to be placed on unnecessary waits and delays. The legacy approach to DCI involved multiple suppliers, long-lead times, manual processes and offline ‘on the phone’ procurement. Unlike traditional DCI, cloud-centric DCI is built to accelerate enterprise agility with SDN.
With data and applications residing across multiple data centres, cloud-centric DCI enables interconnection across these diverse ecosystems. Customers are no longer restricted to a single data centre environment or having to allocate resources to doing it themselves.
Moving to a Cloud-Centric DCI Strategy
Most businesses today need the ability to roll out new services quickly across the globe, as well as to optimise their connectivity for their applications. A cloud-centric DCI ecosystem unlocks new levels of scalability and agility when connecting globally. It removes the limits on where and how businesses interconnect.
With cloud-centric DCI, an enterprise can interconnect its data centre in Asia Pacific with another data centre in North America within a few minutes. Instead of having to manually provision cross-connects, an SDN platform enables on-demand connectivity to a global interconnect ecosystem. There is no need to manage multiple service providers across various local and regional markets.
Connectivity across data centre footprints can be easily managed via a single pane of glass. Network visibility with real-time analytics of the network performance across the entire DCI ecosystem can be monitored on the SDN platform. The organisation can continually adapt and optimise their network connectivity with granular bandwidth options to meet changing needs on an intuitive and intelligent interface.
Ultimately, a long-term cloud-centric DCI strategy is a combination of a robust core network, SDN fabric and on-demand platform. It is a new networking model built for modern business services and applications.
At Epsilon, we have built our connectivity solutions around SDN to deliver a cloud-centric network that supercharges your DCI strategy. Our customers and partners can use the Infiny SDN platform for interconnecting data centres, CSPs and internet exchanges (IX).
They gain instant access to our network fabric with the ability to order and provisioning connectivity services on-demand.
