Equinix to provide universal Ethernet exchange platform in its data centers

Data center services provider Equinix is developing a 'first-of-its-kind platform' for traffic exchange between Ethernet service providers. The Equinix Carrier Ethernet Exchange platform will be enabled by Alcatel-Lucent service routers.

“In broad strokes, it will allow carriers to interconnect on a one-to-many or on a many-to-many basis,” Equinix Director of Innovation Jonathan Lin said. “We’ve seen various carrier technologies come and go. Ethernet is number one topic on everyone’s mind. It’s definitely a huge growth area for (carriers).”

Carriers have traditionally been limited in their ability to provide the relatively cheap high-speed Ethernet services outside of their networks’ geographical areas. To offer a seamless service, they had to deal with a complex process of making interconnection agreements with multitudes of other carriers.

Equinix, leveraging the volume of providers it hosts in its Internet Business Exchange data centers around the world, will enable Ethernet carriers to interconnect without the hassle of negotiating multiple agreements and dealing with standard differences. The platform will use a standardized method to translate between the carriers and establish technical specifications for the interconnect service.

The Equinix-exclusive platform will be in development phase until the first quarter of 2010, Lin said. The company is planning to make a formal deployment announcement late that year. “We’re still working on developing the full roll-out strategy.”

Daniel Golding, VP and research director at Tier 1 Research, said Ethernet was “replacing all the old outdated technologies.”. It provides more bandwidth at a lower cost and considerable scalability.

Golding said the Foster City, Calif.-based data center provider was in a unique position to develop such an offering because of its focus on attracting carriers to colocate in its facilities. “This offering works because Equnix already has a vast majority of interconnections in their data centers,” he said. “There’s only a handful of companies that are in the position to compete with Equinix.”

Those companies include Switch and Data, Telx and Telehouse Europe.

“It’s very likely that we’ll see others enter the space if Equinix is successful,” Golding said. “They’re going to wait a little while. I’d wait and see if Equinix can get a lot of traction.”

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