Customers are looking for ways to augment, and even replace, their existing on-premises infrastructure for multiple reasons, including the development and testing of new applications, data center reductions or even application resiliency and protection. They are looking for an expedient way of consuming additional infrastructure. Most importantly, capital investment for something that may be temporary, whether it be short or long term, may not be feasible and CAPEX funding is difficult to justify.
For these reasons, bare metal services that are offered in a consumption model, via operational expense versus capital expense, is the most attractive option for businesses of all sizes. But having bare metal as a service with a consumption model still isn’t enough. When you think about data transfer and movement, speed and latency, physical location, availability and security, not just any location or provider can address all that.
Customers are also looking beyond having physical servers provisioned as bare metal. They also need additional types of services in addition to compute. An application or business platform isn’t made up of just compute cycles and memory. There are other components needed. What about storage and the protection of the data on that storage? What about the aggregation of compute, storage and networking in a virtualized environment for traditional virtual machines and to help assist with the transition to micro-services with containers? That isn’t happening with bare metal provisioned services providing compute and memory only.
We have good news. Dell Technologies has partnered with Equinix, the leading datacenter host and network aggregator to provide Equinix Metal using Dell Technologies platforms and solutions.
Equinix Metal is comprised of a set of discreet platforms all offered as a bare metal service. As mentioned, customers need bare metal beyond compute and we’ve created a unique service where compute, storage, data protection and even hyperconverged are offered as a bare metal services all via subscription.
PowerEdge, PowerStore, PowerProtect DD VE and VxRail are used to complete this first ever, wholly unique solution of bare metal encompassing everything a customer needs for business agility, development and transformation, augmentation of existing infrastructure, or even replacing existing infrastructure for a business platform.
This solution isn’t only for end customers but also for providers that offer value added services, from full managed services, to systems integration, to full outsourcing of a customers’ environment.
Notice the connectivity into and out of Equinix Metal services. Ten millisecond access to the service is assured as Equinix is one of the largest network aggregators in the world. A customer, regardless of their network provider, can be confident that their provider has a direct connection into an Equinix datacenter and colocation facility in multiple places.
Today, Equinix Metal is strategically located in 18 different locations around the world, including the Americas, EMEA and ASIA-Pacific, ensuring that wherever you are, there is a location that can serve you.
Equinix Metal already provides over 60,000 monthly server deployments across their 18 globally available locations with over 1,800 interconnected networks, assuring the resiliency, knowledge and connectivity needed for customers of all types, wherever they are in their journey.
For a more complete picture of this unique solution, imagine the added benefit of Equinix’s overall solution of customer cages. This includes their Metal Cage, over 1,800 network service providers and the Equinix Fabric itself, connecting to various cloud providers of all types and services. This allows the customer and the provider to leverage all that is available to build and manage private, hybrid and even multi-cloud environments.
Imagine having your Dell Technologies APEX private cloud in a cage directly connected to the Equinix Metal cage that is hosting your bare metal subscription capacity managed by Equinix. Meanwhile, you are also connected to your publicly hosted cloud. All of this is managed by a provider of your choice for a full multi-cloud experience, allowing you to focus on your business outcomes.
Let’s take a look at some of the use cases that using Equinix metal in addition to other Equinix and Dell Technologies services can address.
Dell Technologies has partnered with Equinix to create Equinix Metal, a bare metal provisioning, on demand and subscription-based service using Dell Technologies hardware and solutions focused on compute, storage, data protection and even hyperconverged for ready to run platforms to support virtual environments and transitional, scalable services such as containers.
We invite our partners to explore the Equinix Metal as a Service Knowledge Center for more solution information.
