Webhosting

Want Equinix to Manage Your Network?

Equinix's new multi-network management services include: Equinix Managed Router Service, Equinix Intelligent Routing Service and Equinix Command Center.

by Wayne Kawamoto [March 21, 2002]

Equinix, Inc., a provider of core Internet exchange services, announced a new strategic focus that should leverage the company's multi-network Internet hubs and bring performance benefits and cost efficiencies to ISPs. As a part of this initiative, the company announced three new multi-network management services, Equinix Managed Router Service, Equinix Intelligent Routing Service, and Equinix Command Center.

Equinix's multi-network management services are designed to provide customers with managed services that optimize an Equinix IBX environment to provide better performance and more cost effective Internet operations. According to the company, Equinix's network-centric strategy and services leverage more than 75 networks that participate as Equinix's Internet Business Exchange (IBX) centers to maximize the performance, scalability, revenue, and cost benefits of network diversity to provider customers. The initiative is comprised of two service sets: multi-network management services and traffic exchange services, which may provide customers with support for their peering and network connectivity needs.

With Equinix Managed Router Service, enterprises and content companies should be able to outsource network integration to Equinix. This service is designed to help companies that do not have the internal technical expertise to configure Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) [definition] settings and let Equinix manage the connectivity to their choice of networks. In addition, the service includes router management, administration and network service provisioning.

Equinix Intelligent Routing Service is a managed routing service that should enable performance and price-based traffic control, coordinating in real-time the customer traffic across the customer's choice of networks. This service is designed to leverage the aggregation of network service providers within IBX centers and lets customers tune networks to balance price and performance priorities and route traffic across the least priced path that still meets performance requirements. Offered as a managed service, Equinix Intelligent Routing Service may deliver dramatic reductions in bandwidth costs, without a large hardware or software investment.

Via a managed software architecture, Equinix Command Center is designed to let customers self-monitor, manage, and control applications, network devices, systems resources, and user transactions, as well as provide customers with control over infrastructure performance and service level agreements. The service features in-band and out-of-band network monitoring and management, aggregated information across multiple IBX centers, browser-based access to detailed monitoring and a single Equinix point of contact that handles support and billing.

The second product segment in the network-centric services strategy focuses on providing high-performance and cost-effective peering, transit, and traffic exchange services for carriers, ISPs, and large content providers and includes Equinix Internet Core Exchange and Equinix GigE Exchange services.

Equinix Internet Core Exchange, announced in December 2001, is designed to be the first turnkey service that improves the peering architecture of the Internet. The service should enable, in a centralized and neutral environment, direct interconnection for peering between major backbone networks for the first time.

As a part of the traffic exchange services segment, Equinix plans to expand Equinix GigE Exchange, a service designed to facilitate ISP and content peering, to additional IBX centers in the first half of 2002. This service, deployed in 2001 and currently available in the Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley area IBX centers, is a bundled offering that's based on a gigabit ethernet central switching fabric. The service should help ISP and content provider customers establish a network or content presence within an IBX center to gain better performance while reducing costs.

"Equinix's multi-network Internet hubs offer a variety of services for ISPs of all sizes to realize the performance benefits and cost efficiencies of operating in a unique environment alongside more than 75 different networks," said Jay Adelson, founder and CTO, Equinix, Inc. "Equinix Internet Core Exchange, which fundamentally improves the peering architecture of the Internet for the world's top backbone networks, is targeted to the largest ISPs. Equinix GigE Exchange, designed for a broad range of ISPs and large content providers, provides a gigabit ethernet central switching fabric to link the many networks participating in our IBX centers to enhance the performance and efficiency of their traffic exchange with other networks. With these services and its commitment to providing the most comprehensive Internet exchange offerings, Equinix has become a critical component in the architecture of ISP interconnectivity."

Availability and pricing
The Equinix Managed Router Service, Equinix Intelligent Routing Service, and Equinix Command Center are available today. Pricing is as follows:

Equinix Managed Router Service—flat rate monthly recurring fee.

Equinix Intelligent Routing Service—price is based on the amount of data that passes through the service.

Equinix Command Center—pricing is based on the number of service checks and the specific areas that the customer chooses to monitor.

— End