When it comes to getting the IT infrastructure they need, today’s business leaders have more options than ever before. To drive their business forward, they can choose from traditional data centers, colocation services, private cloud, public cloud and all manner of virtual infrastructure solutions. While having greater infrastructure flexibility is undoubtedly a good thing, it also creates a paradox of choice: With so many different options available, it can feel nearly impossible to choose the right one every time.
Deploying a hybrid infrastructure gives business leaders the flexibility to meet the requirements of diverse workloads across many different locations. However, hybrid infrastructure is certainly not immune from the paradox of choice. Choosing the right hybrid infrastructure for your business is not a single decision, but rather a series of smaller ones. You must decide which workloads you should place where and then build a modernized network infrastructure to tie all the different pieces together.
In short, you need a digital infrastructure strategy, and you need to align it to your overall business strategy. This means designing for business outcomes: mapping where business value comes from across your operations and then selecting the infrastructure options that optimize that value.
It also means building the infrastructure you need today, with an eye toward future-proofing your operations. In recent months, we’ve seen just how disruptive emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing can be. If businesses want to ensure they’re ready to use these technologies to their full potential, they need to start building the infrastructure to support them today. Trying to support these new technologies with conventional IT infrastructure that’s not fit for purpose will inevitably lead to failure.
Working with the right digital infrastructure partner is essential to executing your IT modernization strategy and getting the hybrid infrastructure you’ll need in order to be successful in the years to come. In this blog post, we’ll look at two success stories from leading European companies that built their ideal hybrid infrastructures on Platform Equinix®. These companies placed their various workloads in the right locations and ensured that the different components of their hybrid infrastructure work well with one another across their distributed operations.
CELSA Group modernizes its network to support hybrid multicloud
As a leading producer of long steel products, CELSA Group™ is well acquainted with many of the digital infrastructure challenges specific to the manufacturing industry. The company runs many of its workloads in the public cloud, but it also needs to support on-premises workloads to keep its distributed facilities connected. To put it simply, it needed a hybrid multicloud architecture to get the best of both worlds: the flexibility to take advantage of cloud services on demand paired with cost-effective, low-latency connectivity across edge locations.
Working with Equinix, CELSA replaced its legacy MPLS network with a modernized software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) environment. It deployed dedicated internet access via Equinix Internet Access (formerly Equinix Connect) to get the connectivity it needed. The company also uses software-defined interconnection capabilities from Equinix Fabric® to connect various sites across Europe.
The dense geographic footprint of Platform Equinix helped CELSA connect its infrastructure across Europe. This includes both core European hubs like London and Paris and edge metros like Madrid, Barcelona, Stockholm and Warsaw. By deploying in more locations, the company reduced the distance data has to travel for processing, thus helping to keep latency low.
The company also uses dedicated cloud on-ramps on Equinix Fabric to access services from multiple cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. By moving cloud traffic over high-performance Equinix Fabric virtual connections instead of its MPLS network backbone, CELSA reduced latency for cloud workloads by up to 10x.
In addition to deploying a hybrid multicloud architecture with modernized networking capabilities, CELSA was able to consolidate much of its legacy infrastructure, helping the company reduce network infrastructure costs by up to 40%. Read the full CELSA case study to learn more.
Mercury Engineering builds secure, resilient hybrid IT infrastructure
Like the manufacturing industry, the construction industry frequently requires companies to operate distributed, interconnected sites at the digital edge. Mercury Engineering, a Dublin-based engineering and construction company with operations across Europe, needed high-performance hybrid infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted access to essential project data. The company needed this data to be protected and available at all times, as many of its projects would not be able to proceed without consistent access to up-to-date design information.
The company ultimately decided to move its entire physical and virtual infrastructure into Equinix IBX® data centers in Dublin. To support redundancy, the company deployed in two different Equinix facilities within the city. Both of Mercury’s Equinix deployments are connected to remote sites throughout the world, and to Microsoft Azure cloud services via Equinix Fabric and Azure ExpressRoute.
This end-to-end connectivity allows the company to gather data created at the edge and use it in the cloud. As a result, Mercury can now capitalize on advanced data-intensive use cases such as 3D modeling and augmented reality. For example, Mercury workers can use smart headsets to survey construction sites in an AR environment, while conversing directly with design engineers in remote locations.
Working with Equinix helped Mercury establish a centralized hub to host its hybrid IT services. From that hub, it can connect to all of its construction sites throughout the world. Leveraging Equinix Fabric will also help the company future-proof its operations. As Mercury continues to add new project sites, it will be able to quickly integrate them into its hybrid IT architecture and scale connectivity to those sites flexibly.
Finally, Mercury gained access to critical partner ecosystems via Equinix Fabric. This allows the company to co-innovate and scale its engineering and construction capabilities quickly, thus unlocking a new source of competitive advantage. Read the full Mercury case study to learn more.
Build the hybrid infrastructure that powers your success with help from Platform Equinix
CELSA Group and Mercury Engineering are just two examples of customers that have successfully navigated the complexity of hybrid infrastructure with help from Equinix. Just as we helped them deploy the infrastructure they needed across European edge metros, we can help you deploy in all the strategic locations that matter most to your business. With our global colocation footprint and on-demand digital infrastructure services, getting the ideal hybrid infrastructure for your business doesn’t have to feel daunting.
To learn more, read our e-book Hybrid Infrastructure: A Leader’s Guide.
