Digital Realty, a company consisting of some of the world’s leading data center experts involved in helping clients acquire, own, expand and operate data centers, is concluding a two-year expansion plan. The objective of the two-year plan is to use an international network to connect its 131 global data centers. In 2013, Digital Realty’s data centers, which spread throughout the enterprise in 33 markets, accomplished the connection of European properties. By the end of the year, the company expects to complete North America and Asia-Pacific connectivity, which will add data centers onto the network in Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong and Osaka.
“We’re making sure we drive the last spike into the ground connecting all our properties together through a Digital Network Ecosystem,” says Matt Miszewski, SVP sales and marketing for Digital Realty.
A customer in Melbourne, Australia having the ability to connect to a Chicago cloud provider is an example of the Digital Network Ecosystem’s role. Customers in any of Digital Realty’s data centers will be allowed connection with any facility. Dark fiber is used to connect available data centers, and lit fiber services are leased from carriers where necessary.
Large enterprises in financial services, retail, healthcare and big cloud providers, called SMACC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Content) by Digital Realty, make up the majority of Digital Realty’s clients. The buildings, generators and cooling are provided by Digital Realty, and the servers and internal networking are provided by the customers. Digital Realty also provides “smart hands” that manage server reboots and open Internet exchange services.
Digital Realty is occasionally partnered with big cloud providers and web-scale companies such as Facebook, and companies such as Equinix Inc., QTS Data Center Services, CoreSite, DuPont Fabros Technology and CyrusOne either act as customers or partners. Including cloud services in Digital Realty’s data centers draws in enterprise customers. Customers carrying IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. cloud businesses is an example of how Digital Realty’s business model transforms into a righteous cycle with proper execution.
“When a large enterprise customer comes to us, they’ll have a need to direct-connect to AWS or Salesforce.com. They’ll also have a need to connect to private cloud assets in a different areas, and also connect to manage service providers,” Miszewski says. “Our trick is to be able to provide the space and power in the data center, but more importantly connect them to the other services they need to be successful.”
GeoTel Communications, LLC, the leading provider of telecommunications infrastructure data for more than 14 years, offers telecom infrastructure data in a GIS and online format. If interested in viewing or a demonstration of our telecom data sets in the U.S., which include data centers, call GeoTel Communications at (800) 277-2172, or email us at sales@geo-tel.com.
