The US subsidiary of Netherlands-based data center provider EvoSwitch has received Open-IX certification for its Northern Virginia data center.

Open-IX is an industry organization that certifies internet exchanges and data centers that meet its standards. Less than one year old, the organization is trying to stimulate creation of an exchange ecosystem alternative to commercial exchanges that dominate the US market and are controlled by a handful of companies, such as Equinix, Telx and a few others.

The organization says it's goal is to bring to the US the European exchange model, where exchanges are governed by members and not by commercial operators.

Both exchanges and data centers that host them have to be certified by Open-IX to be part of the ecosystem. Data center operators like Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros and CyrusOne have had their facilities certified.

The EvoSwitch data center in Virginia hosts infrastructure of LINX NoVA, the Northern Virginia exchange operated by the Londondon Internet Exchange.

Eric Boonstra, president of EvoSwitch USA, said EvoSwitch was the first data center operator to bring the European exchange model to the US. "We firmly believe that for our customers to have choice, we cannot tie them to interconnection services only available in our data centers," he said.

Boonstra added that access to LINX has made its facility more attractive to customers. "We are already seeing increased demand for colocation services since LINX NoVA went live inside our facility."