Cloudscene is now one of the world's largest directories of colocation data centres, cloud service providers and network fabrics. Yesterday it launched an independent telecommunications marketplace for buyers and sellers of connectivity services, directly connecting enterprises to the 5,000+ service providers listed on Cloudscene.
“Cloudscene, as an idea, started a little over two years ago. It began in the form of a spreadsheet that I used to keep track of which providers were in which data centres across Australia and Asia, and then the world,” said Slattery, who founded Cloudscene. “Prior to Cloudscene, it wasn’t possible to get the level of detail I required to support the needs of the other telecommunications-based businesses I’d established. I figured if it’s a problem for me, it must be a problem for others."
Quickly establishing itself as the industry’s go-to resource, Cloudscene began to receive countless requests from enterprise buyers looking to connect with the service providers listed on the global directory.
“Shortly after we launched Cloudscene, the market quickly realised the potential of the data our analysts were collating. With more than 6,000 data centres and 5,000 service providers, our users began asking us to help match them to service providers who could fulfill their needs for services such as transit, metro Ethernet tails or international capacity. Initially we just helped by connecting people, but after a while we decided to build a solution that benefits the entire industry, and Cloudscene's Marketplace was born," added Slattery.
In an exclusive interview with Capacity Media earlier this year, Slattery was asked about the progression of Cloudscene and how all came about, commenting: "Cloudscene came about because both the Megaport and Superloop businesses, is about helping people but also carriers and most providers within data centres connect with each other. The problem was, there wasn’t anywhere that had this information in a coordinated fashion. So really it’s a true and free resource built up out of the fact that I needed something like that and no one had one, so I built it. And then I thought this is not just useful for me it’s good for the industry. It was a tool that started as a wish, a spreadsheet and a database."
Whilst long-established network industry forums and user groups continue to be an important medium for community discussions and advice, they do not remove the time-consuming, manual quotation process for enterprises.
“With Marketplace, Cloudscene is now able to bring buyers and sellers together, to close the gap and facilitate a smoother buying experience. Coupled with the network intelligence offered by the data on our connectivity directory, we’re able to provide a much greater support to enterprise buyers,” concluded Bevan Slattery.
The initial launch of Cloudscene’s Marketplace provides free, unlimited listings to all enterprise buyers. The product roadmap will see the release of additional features in the future, such as direct messaging, analytics and sellers’ listings.
Cloudscene’s Marketplace is now open to the public and accessible via www.cloudscene.com/marketplace
The news comes after Cloudscene revealed last month the top ten data centre operators in North America, EMEA, Oceania and Asia for the second quarter of 2017.
