Network service providers (NSPs) are looking to monetize 5G, business services and artificial intelligence (AI) applications that require massive amounts of data captured from numerous sources that are processed in real time. Infrastructure investment in data center compute, storage, AI, applications, services and management continues to grow as the challenge for NSPs becomes how to seamlessly connect all of these disparate elements to an increasing variety of devices, users and data sources worldwide.
Capacity requirements for AI applications, streaming, security and on-demand infrastructure add another layer of complexity to the challenge of connecting each user. NSPs are addressing the demand for more connections and greater capacity with a hybrid combination of physical and virtual infrastructure. As hybrid infrastructure becomes more complex, interconnection between and among NSPs becomes even more challenging. Delivering digital network services at scale requires NSPs to collaborate with operators and cloud providers to implement automated solutions that enable rapid and reliable hybrid interconnection worldwide.
From the Edge to the World
The need for ubiquitous connectivity combined with ever-increasing capacity demands makes interconnection requirements more fluid. NSPs can no longer establish a nailed-up connection sufficient to meet continuously changing interconnect needs. NSPs are trying to balance and optimize the use of owned network infrastructure with cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and bare metal-as-a-service (BMaaS). The result is hybrid deployments that optimally blend on-premises data centers, co-located facilities, and private and public cloud infrastructure. Virtual interconnection is a way to align hybrid and multicloud networks to improve performance and redundancy while optimizing costs. But getting all of this to work at scale requires standardized automated solutions that rely on collaboration between operators and cloud providers to deliver a seamless mix of physical and virtual interconnect infrastructure.
Achieving that level of hybrid interconnection requires automation and standardization among and between NSPs. For more than a decade, TM Forum has been working with NSPs and vendors to define open interconnectivity strategies and tools. MEF is defining the next generation of Ethernet Services to align on-demand connectivity, application assurance, cybersecurity, and multicloud-based services that can be delivered across a standards-based automated ecosystem of partners. The GSMA CAMARA effort is defining open application program interfaces (APIs) and frameworks to facilitate application-to-network integration enabling NSPs to incorporate hybrid networks into service enablement platforms.
interconnection - The Future of Interconnection | Equinix Whitepaper
Digital Edge Strategy Briefing | Equinix Infopaper
Interconnected, Automated Bare Metal
Interconnecting the public network using open frameworks and APIs takes discipline. Implementation requires extensive collaboration between multiple NSPs and cloud providers to ensure a consistent, interoperable implementation. NSPs have designed networks to implement a wide variety of physical and virtual elements. As demand soars and services and applications become more complex, the number of IaaS and BMaaS solutions will continue to grow. However, existing manual operations processes and siloed solutions are neither flexible nor accurate enough to support the complexity of hybrid interconnection at the scale required by AI, security, IoT and other complex applications under construction worldwide. Hybrid interconnection also requires a degree of automation both within and among NSPs that can only be addressed through collaboration and standards.
Equinix Metal is an alternative to public cloud offerings that enables customers to own the hardware and SHARE the network. Hardware is built to specific NSP requirements and delivers on-demand agility without the lock-in of typical cloud services. Performance is not affected by “noisy neighbors” because the cloud infrastructure is not shared. Equinix Metal can operate any workload, for example containers on bare metal infrastructure using the Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes engine. This gives operators an unprecedented level of flexibility and control over their networks, enabling seamless automated interconnection with partners and providers on demand.
Orange Builds Software Defined Network Nodes on Equinix Metal
To complement its physical interconnection capabilities, Orange plans to deploy over 40 cloud points of presence (POPs) based on a virtual POP design, utilizing standard hardware with a container-based network stack on top. Using the Equinix digital platform and Metal services to speed up deployment of cloud POPs, Orange can reduce the time to deploy a cloud POP from several months to a few weeks and benefits from a usage-based charging model that conserves capital. Orange would be able to alter POP capacity incrementally and on demand using automated interconnection to accommodate more data traffic and simplify remote access to cloud services enabling efficient and reliable data exchange. In tandem with Equinix Fabric, this enables Orange to privately and reliably connect to cloud providers, backhaul and last-mile networks worldwide.
The reality today is that no single service provider can own all the infrastructure required to deliver high volume data services worldwide. Interconnection is more important and complex than ever and something every NSP has to solve. Automated virtual interconnection deployed in standardized configurations in collaboration with partners and providers ensures cost-effective and efficient hybrid interconnection for seamless, secure data transfer.