The Open Cloud Exchange: What It Is, What’s New and Why Use It

Data centers have always been a point of interconnection – remember “carrier hotels?” Today, thanks to digital transformation (DX), data centers are crucibles for IT modernization, a place where increasingly more powerful hardware can be combined with networking services platforms such as CoreSite’s Open Cloud Exchange^® (OCX). 

By virtualizing and automating network connection services, the OCX enables an enterprise to efficiently migrate applications, maximize cloud deployment ROI, control operational costs, support remote workers and deliver customer experiences that create competitive advantage.

What is the Open Cloud Exchange?

The Open Cloud Exchange is a software-defined solution built to simplify multicloud and hybrid IT management by virtualizing critical network services. The OCX was originally designed to provide direct connection into the leading, then many, CSPs. Through a cross connect in a CoreSite data center, our customers were (and are able) to take advantage of cloud services without traversing the public Internet. CSPs benefit by not being burdened with managing connectivity for each enterprise.

Of course, we integrated more features as distributed networking became more widespread and more complex. Today, through a single pane of glass, you can connect rapidly and easily interconnect your IT infrastructure to cloud service providers (CSPs), managed IT (SaaS) service providers, network carriers and business partners – in short, your digital ecosystem.

What is new with the Open Cloud Exchange?

Our most recent enhancements take the OCX’s cloud interconnection capabilities to a new level. Considering that 89% of organizations have a multicloud strategy, and 80% of that group connect multiple public and private clouds¹, it’s clear there’s significant value in enhancements specific to this phase in hybrid IT evolution. Here are our latest updates.

Open Cloud Exchange Enhanced Services

Why join the Open Cloud Exchange?

Enterprises now run hybrid, multisite and/or multicloud environments – 45% of organizations are using two to three cloud infrastructure providers.² Reducing complexity is a top priority. For this and other reasons, enterprises turn to colocation, interconnection and the OCX:

• Colocation provides a secure, resilient and scalable compute/storage environment complementing on-premises and public cloud and eliminates legacy data center build outs.

• Interconnection provides low-latency traffic/data exchange among connected parties. Perhaps more importantly, the OCX helps you to “right-size” broadband relevant to use cases and dynamically adjust broadband capacity.

• The OCX provides enterprise-class connectivity services and automation within the data center. You only need to provide basic information to stand up end-to-end connections, which means you can handle a great deal of networking tasks with in-house resources.
  
  

How does the OCX support infrastructure and operational goals?

Connectivity has bubbled up to the top of decision criteria. Why? Because the right connectivity choices support your cost, security, performance and scalability objectives. But colocation and connectivity services providers are not created equal, so be sure to understand each provider’s offerings and how they fit with your hybrid cloud strategy, objectives and budget. 

By partnering with CoreSite and joining the OCX, you can:

• Scale and deploy new applications across multiple U.S. markets using inter-market connectivity
• Improve network performance and security with guaranteed private network isolation, throughput and lower latency compared to public internet connections
• Increase speed to market and gain greater control and optionality
• Recoup cloud egress fees and redirect funds and internal resources to other business priorities
  
  

Get the OCX E-book

We hope to have sparked your interest in the Open Cloud Exchange and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your multicloud strategy. 

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When you are ready, visit here to download our new e-book, The CoreSite Open Cloud Exchange: An Interconnection Platform to Solve Digital Business Challenges to get even more details on our unique interconnection platform.