Digital Realty Trust, the global data center and colocation company, is making headway on its open Internet exhange initiatives.
For one, Digital Realty has set up the first U.S.-based Internet exchange according to AMS-IX’s business model in Amsterdam.
“They understand the value of the neutral and distributed internet exchange model for the U.S. internet market and the importance of high quality infrastructure to its efficient running,” said Job Witteman, CEO at AMS-IX. “AMS-IX is also the world’s first exchange to offer an Inter-IPX service to its customers and is planning to deploy this service at AMS-IX New York. The AMS-IX Inter-IPX service provides an open interconnecting solution that allows IPX networks to securely and efficiently exchange IP traffic with other mobile networks, thereby covering more territory, and handling more content and volume.”
The Inter-IPX service complies with the high quality SLAs required by GSMA. Currently, 15 organizations use the Inter-IPX service at AMS-IX in Amsterdam, including TATA Communications, Comfone AG and iBasis.
Digital Realty is also in the process of applying for Open-IX certification for its data centers in several key markets, including New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Open-IX certification provides third-party verification that the data center has adopted professional standards regarding open access.
“Since our initial launch of the Digital Open Internet Exchange in August 2013, we have made significant progress in creating a truly open Internet exchange environment,” said Digital Realty vice president of connectivity, John Sarkis. “The announcement of the Amsterdam Internet Exchange Open Internet Exchange within our 111 8th Avenue facility in New York paves the way for a successful initiative across the Open-IX forum. Digital Realty will continue to promote the availability of neutral, secure, reliable, and cost-effective Internet exchange environments throughout our properties.”
Sarkis added, “The enablement of the Inter-IPX application across AMS-IX’s Open-IX platform is a further example of the evolution of the Open-IX environment, which we plan to continue to support across our portfolio.”
The Open-IX framework ensures future continuity of the neutral governance model and the technical compliance of any participating Internet exchange. The ultimate objective of Open-IX is to reduce interconnection complexity and the associated costs in North America, which have been higher than in Europe, where the neutral and distributed internet exchange model is very common.
