Equinix expands digital reach to Canberra

Equinix has announced the availability of Equinix Fabric in the CA1 Canberra International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre. The move enables organisations, including federal government agencies, to instantly connect multiple clouds and networks to build a secure hybrid multicloud infrastructure. Governments can also use Equinix Fabric for intergovernment collaboration.

To meet the growing on-demand interconnection needs of organisations in Canberra, Equinix Fabric allows customers to connect to any other company’s distributed infrastructure on Platform Equinix, including those in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Government agencies based in Canberra can now use Platform Equinix to privately interconnect clouds, networks and services to highly secure data centres in key metros across Australia. Government agencies can also set up direct connectivity with international and local cloud service providers, all major network service providers and Australia’s Intragovernment Communications Network (ICON).

Equinix Fabric brings together cloud service providers with companies and government agencies looking to adopt cloud services and helps them establish private, high-performance connections. In doing so, Equinix Fabric facilitates secure hybrid multicloud solutions and supports the extensive government presence in Canberra.

As a leading digital infrastructure company, Equinix operates mission-critical colocation environments that can privately connect to major public and private cloud providers, enabling organisations, including government agencies, to store their data proximate to cloud providers for security and regulatory compliance. This infrastructure offers a richer user experience, as government and citizen-centric systems require more control than typical internet-based platforms.

The Global Interconnection Index, Volume Four, published by Equinix, revealed that traditional businesses are moving workloads to an edge-first architecture, with COVID-19 accelerating digital transformation in Asia–Pacific. Government and education is predicted to lead traditional enterprises in the interconnection bandwidth growth rate as public and private initiatives drive a combined 47% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The group is forecast to experience four times the growth over the next four years as it adopts service provider best practices for digital infrastructure deployment.

The Canberra IBX (CA1) is a purpose-built data centre with a range of security features that meet stringent PSPF requirements and ASIO T4 Technical notes, making it suitable for government-grade deployments. Equinix has a national footprint of 17 IBX data centres in Australia, across Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane. When the PE3 facility opens in late 2021 in Perth, this will increase to 18.

With more than 220 facilities across five continents, Platform Equinix enables organisations in Australia to connect to global business markets, including financial centres and gateways to emerging economies.

Guy Danskine, Managing Director of Equinix Australia, said the launch of Equinix Fabric in Canberra is an important milestone for its Canberra-based customers, as security and flexibility are defining elements of their cloud strategies.

“By deploying workloads within CA1 in proximity to the agency and on the ICON service, government organisations can enjoy even greater flexibility, because they can integrate multiple cloud providers seamlessly with other infrastructure capabilities to create hybrid environments while also streamlining information exchange at the highest levels of security across multiple agencies in Australia,” said Danskine.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Kalawin