The deal is designed to allow these customers to quickly provision high-speed, high-capacity network resources whenever they need them.
“Enterprises and service providers today require ‘on-demand’ network capabilities, and market leaders like Equinix are in an excellent position to capitalise on this industry shift,” said Francois Locoh-Donou, SVP of global products group at Ciena.
“We’ve worked closely with Equinix to design an intelligent, open and programmable architecture that delivers an elastic, high-speed, high-performance network for inter and intra-data centre connectivity,” he added.
The on-demand networks will allow Equinix customers across the US, EMEA and Asia-Pacific to benefit from the full value of the cloud, as well as access large amounts of network resources.
A video service provider, for example, would be able to provision an on-demand, high-speed connection during a major sporting event to stream low-latency HD video and other bandwidth intensive applications during peak demand.
The services will be supported by SDN architecture, utilising Ciena’s optical VPN and NFV technologies, as well as its WaveLogic processors for increased flexibility, control and capacity.
“Many Equinix customers are looking for the ability to expand their networks globally and they require high-speed connections within a metro, or globally, between our IBX data centres,” said Ihab Tarazi, CTO at Equinix. “Through our relationship with Ciena, we can offer customers a dynamic and automated interface to the hundreds of network and cloud service providers inside our data centers and meet their needs for next-generation connectivity solutions.”
Earlier this month, Orange Business Services signed an MoU with Equinix to join its Cloud Exchange.
