Be Cloud Smart with Cyxtera Interconnection

Cyxtera Technologies • September 19, 2022 • 3 minute read

Hybrid IT, Connectivity in Interconnection

As businesses reevaluate operations and look to become more agile, efficient, and cost-effective, their motivation to move to the cloud has increased. For many, this has meant exploring a cloud-first model, but cloud-first isn't always the answer. Instead, companies, especially those in heavily regulated sectors, are turning to hybrid IT and a cloud-smart rather than cloud-first approach.

Cloud-smart and hybrid IT provide a holistic approach, including both on-premises and cloud solutions and the option to interconnect them. This allows businesses to achieve digital transformation goals while avoiding the pitfalls of a pure cloud strategy.

Interconnection is the key

Interconnection, or direct connectivity to internet-backbone networks and major cloud providers, eliminates the volatility of the public internet and lets enterprises reduce network costs, increase bandwidth, and improve network performance and reliability. There are three major reasons why enterprises should interconnect their hybrid environments:

1. Reach. To connect to the internet, cloud services, or other network providers, enterprises need direct access to key networks and data centers. This is accomplished with an interconnection solution delivering on-ramps to major networks and cloud service providers.
2. Control. Interconnection gives enterprises greater control over their hybrid environments. When a business uses the public internet, its data is vulnerable to attack. A private connection provides a more secure and reliable way to transmit data and helps protect businesses against data breaches and other security threats.
3. Agility. Interconnection solutions are flexible and can be optimized to meet the changing needs of enterprise hybrid IT environments. Connecting to multiple clouds through an interconnection platform lets companies quickly shift workloads between different clouds to take advantage of cost savings or performance improvements.

Digital interconnection for digital transformation

To further their digital transformation, organizations need a way to connect their on-premise environments, service providers, and cloud resources with high- performance connections. Enter digital connectivity, which lets enterprises quickly and easily build direct connections between colocation environments, service providers, and on-demand infrastructure. These connections can be provisioned in minutes and offer the flexibility to scale up or down as needed. In addition, digital interconnections provide the high performance companies need to support mission-critical applications and data.

When selecting an interconnectivity option for a high-performance and agile hybrid IT network, there are four key considerations:

• Carrier-neutral access to all services. The modern enterprise environment is composed of a variety of on-premise, cloud, and service provider resources. To be effective, a hybrid IT environment requires carrier-neutral access to important services.

• Responsiveness. Enterprises need to establish new connections to service providers and partners on-demand, allowing quick changes as business needs shift.

• Simplicity. Managing a hybrid IT environment can be complex and time-consuming. Enterprises need to monitor, manage, and control their infrastructure and personnel from anywhere through easy-to-use consolidated portals and rich APIs.

• Bandwidth. As businesses move more data to the cloud, they need networks to handle increased bandwidth demands. They need interconnectivity solutions that allow the flexibility to scale bandwidth as needed without disrupting business operations.

The Cyxtera solution

To take full advantage of private connections, enterprises need a partner who can offer a comprehensive suite of interconnection services, including designing and implementing a network tailored to an enterprise’s specific needs and 24/7 support and on-demand capacity.

Cyxtera interconnection drives cloud-smart hybrid IT initiatives forward with direct cloud connectivity, highly secure, low-latency cross-connects, automated provisioning, and on-demand internet bandwidth, giving customers the flexibility of digital connectivity and traditional physical connectivity options through:

• Digital Exchange. Cyxtera’s Digital Exchange is an intelligently automated, deeply connected network fabric allowing enterprises to deploy every piece of their IT infrastructure on demand. It offers click-to-provision access to high-performance compute, storage, and networking, with direct connections to a growing ecosystem of network service providers, cloud on-ramps, and technology service providers.

• Connectivity. Cyxtera’s unified, carrier-neutral Meet Me Rooms let customers rapidly establish direct, 1:1 connectivity to any provider in the Cyxtera ecosystem and access the capabilities needed to accelerate their business.

• Cyxtera Portal. Businesses can easily add new infrastructure solutions and optimize for performance, cost, and availability in a single pane of glass view.

A successful hybrid IT implementation requires an interconnection and infrastructure platform, like Cyxtera, delivering carrier-neutral access to all important services. These interconnections provide the reach, control, and agility enterprises need to fully unlock the potential of hybrid IT.

Contact sales@cyxtera.com today.

Views and opinions expressed in our blog posts are those of the employees who made them and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Company. A reader should not unduly rely on any statements made therein.