VMware Taps Equinix for Private Connectivity

The new integrated service is designed to provide a low-latency, encrypted cross connection between VMware’s technology infrastructure and the AWS cloud, enabling clients to bypass the public internet, improve workflows and offer data mobility across multiple public and private services. Sachin Sony, senior manager for solution marketing at Equinix, explains that private cloud connections are built to provide an additional level of security and resilience for the transfer of modern-day volumes of data.

“Adaption of the cloud is an absolute necessity, but it also throws up challenges around security, latency and how to move huge chunks of data from point A to point B without impacting the performance,” he says. “These are very valid concerns that enterprises tend to have, and this is the challenge that Equinix tries to bridge.”

The private connectivity enables VMware Cloud on AWS to be available at Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) global datacenters. VMware customers can access its services through these private entry points across its 24 locations, via an AWS Direct Connect node deployed at each Equinix datacenter or via the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric).

Mark Anderson, senior director of global solutions enablement at Equinix, says it offers two versions of connectivity: a layer-one cross connection, which is the physical fiber-optic connection within its datacenters, and connectivity as a service—the ECX Fabric—which allows firms to connect to its global network of products and cloud providers.

“Most businesses are looking to diversify risk [by using] multiple cloud vendors rather than putting all your eggs in one basket,” says Sony. “With Equinix you can… connect to multiple infrastructures.” 

Using VMware’s Software Defined Data Center and its network virtualization platform (NSX), firms can run applications across virtual environments between the AWS cloud and on-premise infrastructure. This enables them to extend their private networks and see resources on the public network using VMware tools such as vSphere, vSan, NSX and its vCenter management.