Equinix demystifies cloud

The maxim ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ applies to personal finance as much as it does to cloud architectures.

Taking advantage of features and capabilities from various cloud platforms and cloud providers is key to benefit from all that cloud can offer.

“There is no one-cloud-fits-all strategy,” says Kamel Al-Tawil, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Equinix. “Organisations thus need to be more flexible and adapt expeditiously to the new cloud age. This can only be achieved by having a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategy that will allow the delivery of flexibility, scalability and security.”

While it sounds easy on paper, connecting private, hybrid and public clouds into one cohesive architecture is a distinctly challenging task for IT teams.

Equinix, experts in cloud connectivity, can greatly ease this process. “Our role is to enable cloud service providers and cloud leaders to expand their platforms regionally and globally. Our Equinix Cloud exchange fabric allows companies to interconnect between various cloud providers so they can build a cloud strategy around hybrid cloud and multi-cloud access,” says Tawil.

“We consider ourselves a digital infrastructure company, where we enable digital leaders and cloud leaders to participate in the Equinix platform and the Equinix ecosystem. We have some of the largest cloud service providers currently sitting within our data centres,” he adds.

Equinix has been operating in the UAE since 2012, when, with alliance partner du, it established its first data centre in the region, called X1. Since then, Equinix has added two more UAE locations-X2 in Dubai and AD1 IBX in Abu Dhabi. The latest addition is a network-dense data centre in Muscat, Oman (M1). “We believe [our expansive footprint] will accelerate the cloud adoption agenda for enterprises in the region,” says Tawil.

Cloud strategy
According to Equinix’s 2019-20 Global Tech Trends Survey, only 40 per cent of organisations in the region have their infrastructure in the cloud. However, Covid-19 has greatly accelerated this shift to cloud across various industries in the region.

“Our role is to enable cloud service providers and cloud leaders to expand their platforms regionally and globally. Our Equinix Cloud exchange fabric allows companies to interconnect between various cloud providers so they can build a cloud strategy around hybrid cloud and multi-cloud access,” says Tawil.

“We are working very closely with our partners to move the cloud agenda and the cloud strategy for UAE and the region,” he adds.

Most organisations today consume cloud services in hybrid, multi-cloud architectures, keeping some of their workloads on-premise, some on their private cloud, as well as on various public clouds.

“At Equinix, we are well poised to help companies move their architecture into digital architecture based on a hybrid, multi cloud-architecture. Our customers have access to our enterprise cloud exchange platform, which allows them to build sophisticated and highly scalable, multi-cloud infrastructures,” says Tawil.

“We believe the launch of ECX Fabric and our Dubai hub will allow enterprises to speed up their cloud adoption agenda and grow their multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures,” he adds.

Edge computing
The Global Tech Trends Survey also shows that almost three quarters (72 per cent) of IT leaders in UAE want to move their infrastructure to the edge as they pursue a digitally-enabled architecture. Edge computing allows these organisations to interconnect with various businesses, stakeholders and clouds.

“With our enterprise digital platform, we are well suited to help these companies by putting them into the Equinix ecosystem, where they can interconnect data, clouds, people, organisations and partners,” says Tawil.

With over 220 data centres in more than 56 locations globally, Equinix can help organisations extend their platforms to the edge, and help them attain the global reach they desire, Tawil says.