Equinix Network Edge: Connect Virtual Network Services at the Edge in Minutes

The proliferation of connected devices, the rise of 5G networking and evolving computing requirements have necessitated that organizations increasingly shift their resources to the network edge. Edge computing involves a set of technologies that simplify and enhance data delivery and integration. This enables data to be stored and processed at the edge of a network, which makes it easier and quicker to communicate with devices and users outside of that network.

The network edge is the area where devices and local networks interact with the internet. It's close to the devices it communicates with and provides an entry point into the network. This makes the network edge a critical security boundary that organizations must protect as cybercriminals devise more sophisticated methods for exploiting network vulnerabilities.

What is Equinix Network Edge?

Equinix provides a trusted platform that gives organizations access to a foundational digital infrastructure. It enables businesses to scale with agility, rapidly launch digital services and deliver world-class digital experiences.

Equinix Network Edge enables you to deploy virtual network services closer to their cloud providers, internet service providers, networks and users via its modular infrastructure program. It's optimized for instant deployment and interconnection between your various network services.

Network Edge is designed to help businesses accelerate their digital transformation efforts. It provides new ways to deploy network services through Equinix's global interconnection platform without requiring physical data centers or specific hardware. This approach reduces capital expenses and enables you to scale your IT and network services globally through a digital-ready infrastructure.

Through Equinix Network Edge, you can modernize your networks virtually by deploying network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions from various vendors and connecting them to your digital supply chains. Network Edge also provides integration to the on-demand Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric, which enables you to deploy and interconnect virtual edge devices with global clouds and network providers.

What are the benefits of Equinix Network Edge?

Equinix Network Edge offers a wide range of benefits, from securing your connections to multiple clouds and the public internet and optimizing your various networking solutions. Critical network edge Equinix benefits include:

Reduced application data constraints: Equinix Network Edge enables you to put your data as close to the cloud as possible without actually storing it in the cloud. This eliminates latency issues that typically constrain application data and gives you greater control of your data.

Network simplification: With Network Edge, you can easily stitch virtual network services from various vendors together as a single workflow. This simplifies network management and saves your network team time.

Greater distribution: Network Edge allows you to get closer to your customers, ecosystems, employees and partners, which extends your reach and enables you to integrate everything and interconnect everyone.

Pre-integrated ecosystems: Network Edge provides access to a vast system of pre-integrated solutions, including clouds, a digital supply chain, networks, the public internet and wide-area networking providers.

Multi-vendor flexibility: Network Edge's vendor-neutral approach gives you the flexibility to configure, connect and select from a wide range of industry-leading providers of networking and security solutions.

Reduced CapEx costs: Network Edge enables you to scale network services to the edge without requiring additional physical equipment or hardware. This reduces bottlenecks caused by manual configurations and removes traditional CapEx costs.

Faster time to market: Equinix's Network Edge provides greater connectivity to wherever your data resides. This enables you to access data via the quickest route possible, ensuring enhanced flexibility in workload deployments. Network Edge reduces what typically takes months to get to market down to mere minutes through automated network configurations.

Enhanced scalability: Through Network Edge, you can scale and augment your existing IT solutions via virtual services, which lowers the barrier to new markets, improves performance and reduces risk.

Improved performance: Network Edge enables you to deploy network services closer to your cloud providers and users, which unlocks new use cases that other IT models can't handle.

What are common use cases of Equinix Network Edge?

Popular use cases for Equinix Network Edge include:

• Enabling new, data-intensive solutions that traditional IT models can't handle, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning.
• Ensuring private, secure connections from your networks into your various cloud deployments.
• Optimizing of wide-area networks (WANs).
• Enabling secure connections to the public internet and cloud-to-cloud connections.
• Enabling and optimizing software-defined networking (SDN) and wide-area networking (WAN) solutions, such as branch-to-cloud SD-WAN.
• Deploying distributed infrastructure and enabling hybrid cloud and multicloud connectivity.

How can WWT help with Equinix Network Edge?

WWT works with Equinix to provide future-proofed agile and scalable networks that bring you closer to your customers. We help you gain a competitive edge by interconnecting your foundational infrastructure to a deep ecosystem of customers and partners worldwide. This powerful joint capability enables you to modernize your legacy networks and achieve true digital transformation while simplifying your hybrid cloud journey.

Discover how the WWT and Equinix partnership can help your organization reap the benefits of edge computing and answer the question, "What is Equinix Network Edge?"