Equinix has tapped into its deal to buy Packet earlier this year with the introduction of a new bare-metal service. The colocation and data center company announced the availability of its Equinix Metal platform this week.
Equinix has blended Packet's bare metal technology with its Equinix Fabric, which was previously known as Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric, to spin up bare-metal servers in under 15 minutes. Equinix Fabric provides access to a software-defined interconnection service spanning 237 data centers deployed near major internet exchanges across 46 geographies.
Equinix Metal provides digital businesses with an automated "as-a-service" model, which gives companies the option to deploy the physical infrastructures of their choice at "software speed" across Equinex's platform. With Equinix Metal, businesses can click-and-configure their services via an API and common libraries, or leverage the tools that they are already using to manage infrastructure-as-code.
With applications becoming more distributed, companies face latency issues for their applications and services. In response, service providers, cloud providers and data center companies such as Equinix are deploying their applications and services closer to the edge. Equinix Bare Metal provides both low latency and the ability to offer organizations their own private networks through the Equinix platform.
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The Equinix Metal platform is now available as part of the company's International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers in Amsterdam, New York, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., and is expected to be available in 14 global metros by early next year.
Equinix said its new bare-metal service's use cases include hybrid cloud, Dev-Ops automation, global edge delivery, and security and compliance.
"Equinix Metal is another important step forward in our product portfolio, enabling enterprises to bring together and interconnect hybrid multi-cloud infrastructures at global scale on Platform Equinix," said Sara Baack, chief product officer, for Equinix, in a statement. "With Equinix Metal integrated with Equinix Fabric, infrastructure customers can move at software speed, and tap into the global reach, interconnection value, and unparalleled community of ecosystem partners that digital leaders have