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Equinix Launches Multi Cloud Exchange
Equinix on Wednesday launched an exchange that will link its facilities to multiple cloud service providers.
The Equinix Cloud Exchange is aimed at creating a global cloud interconnection network, much like what Cisco recently announced with its $1 billion Intercloud effort. Like Cisco's offering, the Equinix Cloud Exchange is initially available in select areas. It connects to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure in 13 markets worldwide: Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., New York, Toronto, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. Six additional locations will be added to the network by the end of this year.
Connections to AWS and Azure are currently limited to Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C. and London, with the rest going online later in the year. Equinix indicated other cloud services will be added in the future.
Through a portal and a set of APIs, customers can move workloads among multiple cloud environments. The portal and APIs let administrators allocate, monitor and provision virtual circuits in near real-time, Equinix said.
Equinix, one of the largest datacenter co-location and hosting operators, already has offered Amazon customers connections via its AWS Direct Connect offering. It added Microsoft to the roster last week, saying it would make Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute available in 16 markets worldwide.
About the Author
Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.