Orange, Equinix bring cloud agility to telco infrastructure via bare metal “as a service” capability
Orange, a global network services company, and Equinix, a digital infrastructure company, have partnered up to enable Orange to expand its Telco Cloud presence in Madrid, Amsterdam and Seattle by using Equinix Metal, Equinix’s Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) capability.
This partnership will speed up Orange’s “New Generation International Network” deployment, the companies said. The new model enables Orange’s business and wholesale customers to harness the power of on-demand cloud points of presence (PoPs). This collaboration will improve services such as CDN, SD-WAN, 5G roaming and voice services with an expected latency below approximately ten milliseconds.
Orange gains the ability to quickly deploy its services in response to customer demand without needing upfront CAPEX investment or long supply chains. Orange can roll out new services in weeks instead of months by taking advantage of Equinix Metal’s automated capabilities that are located in proximity to its existing networks.
“We are delighted to partner with Equinix to deploy Orange Telco Cloud PoPs technology on top of Equinix Metal,” explained Jean-Luc Vuillemin, EVP of International Networks at Orange. “By embracing an ‘as a service’ infrastructure model and focusing investment in our SDN and VNF capabilities, Orange can provide a fully flexible and elastic solution to customers, speed up the deployment of our planned 100 Telco Cloud PoPs, and quickly adapt capacity to meet demand.”
The Telco Cloud Platform offered by Orange allows customers to take advantage of end-to-end optimized performance levels, security and flexibility. This is all made possible through virtualized network functions and software-defined networks (SDN). With 40 SDN PoPs worldwide, Orange plans to reach over 100 “Telco Cloud PoPs” by 2024.
Although many executives are concerned about an economic downturn, 72 percent of enterprises worldwide intend to enter new markets according to a report from Equinix. The result is that companies are motivated to engage in significant collaboration and investment in digital technology. Customer demands for speed of deployment and flexibility are driving network providers to develop a new generation of connectivity and infrastructure platform, according to Orange and Equinox.
That said, Zachary Smith, the global head of edge infrastructure services at Equinix, says the companies have been partnering together for many years. Some of the joint services they provide include:
- Developing new services that feature IoT, data analytics, and other cutting-edge technologies.
- Re-architecture of IT (Data centers, cloud, networks, etc.) to connect users to any device from anywhere worldwide.
- Solutions for disaster recovery.
“We have a rich 20-year history of collaboration with Orange and are pleased to see them accelerate innovation for their customers by becoming the first provider to combine their extensive global network footprint at Equinix with the new possibilities provided by our investments in automated digital infrastructure capabilities,” said Smith. “We’re excited to see them expand this offering into additional markets in 2023.”
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Article Topics
bare metal | BMaaS | distributed infrastructure | Equinix | network | Orange | public edge cloud | telco
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