As the cloud platform has matured, the perception has emerged that data centers are much more valuable if they are network neutral. If a customer has the ability to connect to all the clouds and all the networks, they are much more likely to sign on. On the other hand, if a single network provider owns a data center, potential clients are less likely to use it, because they want to open access to networks and clouds.

“[Equinix’s] model of neutrality and how we set up exchanges and provide interconnection … [are the kind] of things customers are looking for,” said Ihab Tarazi (pictured), executive vice president and chief technical officer of Equinix Inc.

Tarazi recently joined host Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) and guest host Scott Raynovich (@rayno) of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, CA. In addition to discussing Equinix’s successful business model, they also covered aspects around computing on the edge.

Connections that can move data and make it work

While Equinix is nowhere close to the size of AWS, Google Inc. or Microsoft Corp., it is at the edge of the cloud. The company helps enable all of the large cloud providers, Tarazi stated. In fact, it has more than 2,000 clouds in its data centers, more than 1,400 networks, and 150 data centers in 40 markets.

Recent acquisitions, including a strategic alliance with Verizon, will be adding more data centers in more markets around the world.

As the Internet of Things and other devices pull in more and more data into edge computing, there’s no need for all data to go all over the globe, so there’s a distinct advantage to a company that owns multiple global data centers, Tarazi pointed out.

He also explained that once the data goes into the data center, the value of the data is based on how it can be exchanged with other pieces of information and, increasingly, how decisions can be made on the data by adding automation and machine learning. Customers are looking for massive capacity, very low latency connections to many data warehouses and data lakes, and then making the connection to the software that can make decisions. That’s where Tarazi envisions the future of data processing on the edge.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Open Networking Summit. 

Photo: SiliconANGLE