The bandwidth requirement for private data exchange between businesses is expected to rise significantly in the near future, and expected to be some six times that of the public internet by 2020.
According to the first Global Interconnection Index from Equinix, the rate at which interconnection bandwidth is outpacing that of the public Internet is almost twofold.
The Global Interconnection Index illustrates the effect of digital transformation, said Equinix, as companies create entirely new ways of connecting with customers, partners and supply chains.
Interconnection bandwidth
According to the index, global interconnection bandwidth, which is described as the total capacity required to privately and directly exchange traffic at distributed IT exchange points, is expected to reach 5,000Tb/s by 2020, compared to an expected 855Tb/s for the public Internet. It is forecast to grow 45% CAGR, dwarfing the global IP traffic growth of 24% (Cisco 2017).
The index reports the industries leading the growth of interconnection as banking and insurance, telecommunications and cloud and IT services. It said it is also influenced by macro trends, such as digital technology use in general, urbanisation and cybersecurity risk.
“What we’re seeing is the emergence of a new Internet,” said Maurice Mortell, managing director for Ireland and emerging markets, Equinix.
“Mobile, social, cloud and the explosion of data are creating disruption on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. In this new reality, it’s scale or fail for companies. To succeed, they are choosing Interconnection; locating their IT infrastructure in an ecosystem of companies that gather to physically connect with customer and partner networks. Interconnection supports multi-cloud consumption at scale, improves network performance, enables greater operational control and reduces security risk,” said Mortell.
Significant contribution
Mortell said that he expects Ireland will contribute significantly to interconnection growth in Europe, as an increasing number of companies look to locate their data here.
“Interconnection in Europe is expected to grow 44% per annum in terms of Bandwidth as businesses shift to digital. We will continue to invest significantly in Ireland in order to support the huge growth of private interconnections that the digital revolution demands,” said Mortell.
“As enterprises continue to adopt a new digital way of working, we expect Ireland to become a go-to location for international businesses needing to interconnect within Europe. The only realistic way for Irish and Irish-based companies to reach all the global markets, partners and people needed to scale and succeed is to adopt an Interconnection-first strategy.”
The sentiments were echoed by John Abel, head of Cloud and Technology, Oracle UK, Ireland and Israel.
Lifeblood
“Data is now the lifeblood of organisations today, and businesses in the UK and Ireland are increasingly relying on it to move closer their customers and partners in their respective ecosystems,” said Abel. “It is vital that companies, large and small, ensure that they have infrastructure in place, and interconnection Bandwidth provisioned, that is safe, secure and robust enough to provide them with access to all of their data sources and allow them to use this information to inform their decisions and drive their businesses forward in a digital world.”
One area where the benefits of interconnection can be significant is in unified communications.
“Interconnection is the only thing that makes sense,” said Nameer Kazzaz, Group CTO, Blueface. “Previously, businesses were wary of interconnecting and sharing data with each other, as they were afraid a competitor could take their customer. We have seen a lot of opening up of networks lately as companies start to realise the value Interconnection can bring.”
Majority of traffic
Blueface said that 95% of its Web traffic is interconnection-based, mostly through interconnections with telecoms providers, helping it to provide a robust, reliable service to business users.
“As a unified communications provider for business customers,” said Kazzaz, “it’s an absolute must and we wouldn’t enter a new market without an interconnection-first strategy. If we are looking to win business from a medium-sized enterprise, I would be five times more confident that we would win the deal with interconnection than I would be without it. Our business would look very different without interconnection.”
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