'Huat' does Interconnection mean during Chinese New Year?

Take for example, leading Chinese integrated communications operator Guangdong Aofei Data Technology Co. It has worked with Equinix to extend its content delivery service via Platform EquinixTM into new markets. Leveraging interconnection, Aofei was able to optimize network quality and ensure fast service delivery to customers by distributing its IT infrastructure in geographically dispersed points of presence (PoPs) to push content to the edge of the network, where it is closest to the end users, for maximum performance. The company is also able to deploy multi-cloud strategy with direct interconnections to all the major CSPs such as Alibaba Cloud, AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure, SoftLayer Cloud, and Tencent Cloud.

The Year of the Dog: our commitment to being “man’s best friend” in business

With mutual prosperity very much at the forefront of what we do, we will continue to play a pivotal role in the developments that will shape our customers’ businesses in the coming year.

• A coming of age for Artificial Intelligence-based applications –Thanks to recent technological advances, we now have available AI-focused processors and deep-learning algorithms needed to bring this technology to life. However, AI systems need to be distributed in a model that can combine multiple data sources with edge deployment and API-enabled path selection to ensure these systems function in real-time. Ensuring a fluid experience is delivered to a user’s smartphone will require high levels of Interconnection Bandwidth, and flexible sharing between data hubs as users travel.

• New subsea cable infrastructures will be the backbone of success – Submarine cable systems have long been essential to the internet. However, the combination of dominant tech trends and internet demographics have amped up data traffic to new levels. We see a new architecture taking hold that will improve costs, deployment agility and interconnection benefits. In September 2017, Equinix announced that it would provide connectivity to the Australian-Singapore Cable (ASC) submarine cable system in Melbourne and Sydney, and enable high-speed connectivity across Asia-Pacific. Along with the Malaysia-Cambodia-Thailand (MCT) cable system, we are expecting to see massive traffic data traffic within the Indo-China region.

• Auditing and data sovereignty will take center stage – Companies are increasingly looking for a global data center platform to meet emerging data sovereignty and auditing mandates. Within Asia, we see an increase in data protection laws and regulations by government bodies–Australia is bringing in new data sovereignty and privacy requirements that will take effect on 22nd February of this year, hot on the heels of similar new laws from Indonesia. With heightened enforcement of data sovereignty regulations in the region, it becomes necessary for organizations to have data centers in multiple regions in order to store data locally. Equinix’s global data center footprint helps satisfy data residency requirements and provides consistent services across locations worldwide.

A year of ‘Huat’

The lucrative prospects of data centers are increasingly attracting new players in Asia. As we move into 2018, we are expecting to see more new entrants in the market, and existing enterprises growing bigger as people become ever more interconnected in the region. With so much of our lives built on connections between people and the insatiable hunger for new services from oft-disruptive market entrants, the need for interconnection has never been more apparent.

Our customers can indeed enjoy a year of ‘huat,’ of successful growth and of great fortune; they are able to scale across a global digital footprint, deliver their own innovative services and technology offerings by embracing interconnection, and leverage vast ecosystems of reach, integration and interconnectivity.