Today’s cloud infrastructure services work pretty much the same way that corporate data centers have worked since the 1960s: Large, centralized server farms deliver information over far-flung networks. But Equinix, Inc. believes it’s come up with a better way to support the exploding amount of data and processing coming from the cloud, while delivering faster response times and greater user flexibility.

The $2.5 billion co-location provider is hanging its hat on a concept it calls “interconnections,” in which processing is managed over a large number of federated data centers spread across the globe. Equinix has assembled a constellation of more than 100 data centers arrayed across 33 metro locations on five continents and anchored by five major data centers in London, New York, Melbourne, Singapore and Toronto.

Wikibon analyst David Floyer calls Equinix “the only vendor who clearly expressed what needs to be done” to reach a vision he calls the mega datacenter. In his definition, mega-data centers are formidable alternatives to conventional cloud services. They will not only host and serve new applications but also house legacy hardware and software provided by customers. The essence of Floyer’s vision isn’t centralization as much as automation. He sees the emergence of a master “cloud operating system” that will automate and federate everything from databases to air conditioning.

Close to the edge

Equinix agrees with Floyer’s basic concept, but notes that believes that cloud entry points need to be located closer to the edge where users, data and traffic originate. The Equinix platform creates a communications hub and ecosystem exchange that forms an “on-ramp to the mega datacenter” wrote Tony Bishop, vice president of global enterprise, in an email interview.

The Equinix definition of internetworking is more encompassing than networks. In a series of blog posts bylined by Bishop, Equinix has laid out the advantages it believes interconnection has over centralization.

“An interconnected enterprise directly and securely connects its employees, partners and customers to what they need, in the right context, using the devices, channels and services they prefer,” Bishop wrote.

Giant data centers in the cloud don’t support the flexibility or speed that businesses will demand in the future, he said. The public Internet introduces unpredictability and latency that becomes more pronounced the farther the user is located from the computing resource. Large central data stores are also inherently slow and bandwidth-intensive. “Data access is fast, secure and more economical if you keep it at distributed edge locations,” Bishop wrote.

In the Equinix model, the central facilities it calls International Business Exchanges are complemented by scores of smaller “communications hubs” that use private networks to connect users to multiple clouds. Data is stored as close to the end-user as possible. Access is through high-speed local connections rather than across the public Internet. “The best way to increase speed and reduce latency between two points is to shorten the physical distance between them,” Bishop wrote.

Ease of integration

But the model is about more than just improving performance. By making the back-end cloud connections transparent, Equinix can provide customers with the ability to seamlessly deploy multiple cloud services from a single point. Equinix calls this the “Cloud Exchange,” and the idea is to “bring together sellers and buyers of cloud services under one roof, in multiple global geographies to transact,” Bishop said.

The Exchange uses via dedicated, private, fiber intra-data center connections and leverages the company’s hubs to enable customers to connect to multiple private MPLS and public Internet networks in order to move data into and out of the Equinix data center and between Equinix data centers.

Bishop admitted that the interconnections concept departs from the norm. “As with any transformation, the organization has to be ready to change the status quo,” he wrote. “These challenges require a fundamental switch in your IT delivery architecture, from one centered on the location of your IT assets to a model that’s distributed and interconnected enough to meet your users anywhere.”

That has business payoffs that go beyond cost savings and responsiveness, Bishop said. “A fundamental problem for most enterprises is that they’ve siloed all their corporate data, making it tough to get at and difficult to fully exploit,” he wrote in one post. “Compliance (and data sovereignty) can be simplified, even in incredibly complex multi-cloud environments across geographically dispersed markets, by keeping data local, with direct and secure interconnectivity to whomever or whatever needs it.”