Many organizations migrating on-premises and public cloud infrastructure to colocation data centers think about the move in terms of space, power and cost-savings.
What they don’t often consider is one of the most valuable advantages that a CoreSite data center colocation can provide – advanced interconnection capabilities that enhance their business reach, capabilities, efficiency and competitive position.
Interconnection is a digital business imperative. And it’s essential to have a solution enabling seamless interconnection within their organization, to customers and business partners, cloud providers and any other services that comprise their digital ecosystem.
CoreSite’s proprietary software-defined networking platform, the Open Cloud Exchange® (OCX), enables high-performance, secure access to the CoreSite marketplace.
Think of the CoreSite marketplace as something akin to your favorite retail mall, only it’s a virtual environment where you have direct and secure entrance into major cloud providers and their resources as well as hundreds of IT products, digital platforms, services and solution guidance.
Let’s back up for a moment to take a closer look at the OCX. Then, we can dive into frequent use cases.
Explore the CoreSite Marketplace
The Marketplace lists leading network operators, cloud providers, partner and value-add services available to develop a complete, flexible IT infrastructure.
The OCX is a software-defined network services platform designed and built to simplify multicloud and hybrid IT management. The OCX is integrated with the MyCoreSite Customer Service Platform, and provides a single port into CoreSite’s switching platform, enabling private virtual connections to multiple service providers. Provisioning is done in real-time and network services that once took weeks can happen in minutes.
For CoreSite colocation customers, the OCX is a low-risk/high-return addition to their deployment. Customers that use the OCX and join the marketplace find that it:
Customers who have joined the OCX also appreciate that their IT deployments and the CSPs sit side-by-side in the same data center. This proximity helps ensure optimal performance and low latency.
The OCX is a very versatile interconnection platform. Here are just a few use cases illustrating how customers frequently employ its capabilities.
Connecting To a Cloud Provider or Business Partner
OCX makes it a cinch to connect to AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud, following the Well-Architected Framework2,3,4,5 CSPs require to provide a guaranteed service level agreement.
Likewise, through OCX you can easily connect to a business partner, such as a credit card processor, or a supplier from whom you buy parts or other materials.
You begin by logging in to the OCX portal. OCX connectivity is comprised of two components, the physical Port and the logical Ethernet Virtual Circuit/EVC. For redundancy/business continuity purposes, you will order redundant ports. You can also order redundant EVCs (an EVC is the cloud equivalent of a VLAN) to separate cloud regions to comply with Well-Architected best practices.
As you progress through the OCX portal screens, each time you specify and order a service, the cost for that service is shown – there is total transparency. Once you’ve specified the service(s) you want, simply click “Submit” on the order screen and you’re done.
You’ll find that the costs for ordering services and products through the OCX are less than ordering them in a decentralized way, individually through carriers or other suppliers. The OCX is very efficient. When ordering ports, for instance, provisioning takes no more than 72 hours, versus the weeks it typically takes when ordering through carriers.
Cloud-to Cloud Communication
Let’s say you have an infrastructure in which you’re using more than one CSP and need to move traffic back and forth between them, while eliminating the normal egress costs you would incur if your router made those routing decisions.
This, too, is accomplished in a few clicks by employing the OCX virtual router between clouds – say AWS and Microsoft Azure. By combining the functionality of MyCoreSite and the OCX, you can easily create this direct connection between the two CSPs, manage routing policies and monitor the traffic flowing between them.
Intermarket Connectivity
It’s common for organizations to maintain offices and operations in multiple markets. Establishing and maintaining high-performance connectivity between those locations is essential to the efficient running of any organization.
In this situation, an organization can use the OCX to stand up virtual circuits to create a high-performance WAN between IT deployments in multiple markets.
CoreSite owns and operates 28 data centers that are strategically located in 10 major markets spanning the U.S. from Silicon Valley and Los Angeles to New York, D.C., and Miami. Our network-rich, cloud-enabled data center campuses are tethered by high-count dark fiber, enabling scalable growth within and access between markets.
CoreSite Solution Architects work with you to understand your business requirements and the architectural options available to help achieve business objectives and the flexibility needed to adapt to the inevitable changes in the IT world.
From pre-sales conversations through infrastructure design, implementation and beyond, Solution Architects can help you achieve your digital transformation goals by providing strategic guidance, risk assessment and return on investment and total cost of ownership modeling when integrating CoreSite data center services to optimize cloud, network/WAN topologies, as well as storage and disaster recovery solutions. They can clearly illustrate the benefits of the OCX, and much more.
Schedule An OCX Demo Today
There’s only so much that can be said in a blog. To truly appreciate its capabilities and value, you need to see it in action. Schedule a demo of the Open Cloud Exchange with a CoreSite Solution Architect. It will be time well spent.
Please reach out to us at TeamSolutionArchitects@coresite.com or contact us to discuss your interconnection goals and get a guided tour of the OCX.