Avaya, Inc. and Steel ORCA, Inc. have announced a strategic relationship that will see them both build what they describe as a “next-generation software-defined data center.”

Under the partnership, Steel ORCA will standardize its data center architecture on Avaya Fabric Connect, setting the stage for rolling out the complete Avaya SDN Fx architecture later in the year.

Steel ORCA’s soon to be opened Digital Utility Center is claimed to be one of the newest and most technologically advanced data centers in the United States, with the company providing colocation, managed services and cloud solutions globally with an emphasis on responsiveness, reliability and resiliency it is provision of data center services.

What, perhaps, makes it interesting is that Steel ORCA is building next-generation facilities using fabric-based SDN architectures, with Avaya SDN Fx allowing Steel ORCA to add new customers and application services without any serious fuss as users numbers grow.

Avaya’s Fabric Connect is said to enable Steel ORCA to provide the agility they need to turn up or change services for multiple clients on the on the go, without the need to touch the network core.

“Many companies talk about being agile, but true agility can only be achieved through a constant focus on simplifying the organization and its underlying infrastructure, without compromising its resiliency,” Chief Technology Office of Steel ORCA Richard Craig said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE.

“When we looked at traditional networking solutions with their associated costs and complexity, we knew we had to move in the direction of SDN using a fabric-based architecture.”

“Avaya SDN Fx and Avaya Fabric Connect technologies simplify network administration for us — which is critical in a demanding co-location and cloud computing environment — improve network resiliency and security for our clients, and reduce operating costs.  We think that’s a pretty powerful combination.”

Steel ORCA’s implementation of Avaya Fabric Connect, followed by a full Avaya SDN Fx deployment will offer delivery automation and programmability from the network core to the user edge, providing, what they claim is a “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity.

Image credit: bayareabias/Flickr/CC by 2.0