Equinix

Equinix, Inc.
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: EQIX
NASDAQ Financial-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
Industry Internet
Founded 1998
Headquarters Redwood City, California, United States
Key people

Jay Adelson, Founder
Al Avery, Founder

Stephen M. Smith
President and CEO
Keith Taylor
chief financial officer
Charles Meyers
chief operating officer
Karl Strohmeyer
President, Americas
Eric Schwartz
President, Equinix Europe
Samuel Lee
President, Equinix Asia Pacific
Products Data centers
Revenue US$2.73 billion (2015)
Number of employees
 5,042 (December 2015)
Website equinix.com

Equinix, Inc. is an American public corporation that provides carrier-neutral data centers and internet exchanges to enable interconnection. The company offers colocation and interconnection solutions and related services to enterprises, content companies, systems integrators and 1,100+ network service providers worldwide. Equinix data centers are also home to more than 500 cloud service providers, and the company operates the Equinix Cloud Exchange, a service enabled by a proprietary software that allows customers to connect to multiple clouds simultaneously.[1]

Equinix operates 145+ data centers (which it calls "International Business Exchanges" – IBXs) across 40 major metropolitan areas in 15 countries on five continents. The company touts its broad geographic reach as a key differentiator, saying it allows its customers to place equipment in close proximity to employees, customers, partners and population centers. The company's Performance Hub offering enables customers to place corporate IT resources near large user populations in data centers connected to many networks and clouds.[2]

The company has its headquarters in Redwood City, California, United States.[3] Equinix reported 2015 revenues of $2.73 billion and is the leading global colocation data center provider by market share.[4][5]

History

Equinix was founded in 1998 by Al Avery and Jay Adelson, two facilities managers at Digital Equipment Corporation. The founders believed that existing data centers would not be sufficient to support the rapid growth of the Internet and saw the opportunity to deploy data centers on a much larger scale to support this growth. In an interview, Adelson recalled that the early Internet was "run by cowboys. … It just wasn't hardened, it wasn't commercialized. And for those of us that cared, we knew that a company like Equinix would need to exist. Somebody would have to be the steward of all this infrastructure."[6]

Equinix expanded to Asia-Pacific in 2002 after acquiring data centers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo in mergers with i-STT and Pihana Pacific.[7] The company extended its operations in 2012, when it announced partnerships to enter the Dubai, UAE and Jakarta, Indonesia, markets.[8] In July 2012, Equinix increased its commitment to Asia-Pacific, its fastest-growing region, by completing a $230.5 million all-cash transaction for Hong Kong-based data center provider Asia-Tone. In the transaction, Equinix gained a total of six data centers and one disaster recovery center spread across the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore markets. At the time of the deal, CEO Steve Smith said the acquisition put Equinix “in a strong position to establish market leadership in Asia-Pacific."[9]

Early in 2015, Equinix opened five new data centers on four continents, which increased the company's global data center footprint to more than 10 million square feet and was billed by the company as a significant expansion of its interconnection capacity.[10]

Also in 2015, Equinix converted to a real estate investment trust (REIT) in a move to gain tax advantages and enhance shareholder value by offering a regular dividend.[11] In addition, Equinix acquired the professional services company Nimbo in 2015 as part of a broader effort to develop its professional services business to assist customers in planning and executing their data center migrations and advancing their network and hybrid cloud strategies.[12]

Equinix announced at the end of May 2015 that it would acquire the British company TelecityGroup.[13]

In November 2015, the European Commission cleared the Equinix offer to acquire Telecity.[14] In January 2016, Equinix announced that it had completed the acquisition of TelecityGroup plc in a transaction valued at approximately $3.8 billion (£2.6 billion). The addition of TelecityGroup’s 40+ data centers more than doubled Equinix’s capacity in Europe, fortifying its position as the largest retail colocation provider in the region. The acquisition expanded the company’s interconnection platform in key European markets. It also added critical network and cloud density in order to better serve enterprise customers who viewed interconnection as a core IT design principle and were increasingly moving to highly interconnected, global data centers to accelerate business performance and innovation. The European Commission cleared the deal after Equinix agreed to sell eight of its data centers around Europe to Digital Realty Trust for $874 million.[15]

Equinix completed a second major data center acquisition in 2015 after announcing it would buy Japanese provider Bit-Isle for $280 million. The deal, finalized in December 2015, doubled the number of Equinix data centers in Japan to 12 by adding five in Tokyo and one in Osaka. It also established Equinix as Japan’s fourth-largest data center provider.[16]

ALOG data centers of Brazil

In 2014, Equinix completed the acquisition of the Brazilian company ALOG Data Center of Brazil S.A. for $225 million. Equinix had acquired a 53% stake in ALOG in 2011. By completing the acquisition of ALOG, Brazil's leading provider of carrier-neutral data centers, Equinix increased its presence in Latin America.[17]

In March 2015, ALOG changed its name to Equinix, completing the merger of the brands.[18]

Data centers

International Business Exchanges

Chairman Peter Van Camp describes Equinix International Business Exchanges (IBXs) as "international airports where passengers from many different airlines make connections to get to their final destinations".[19] Equinix CEO Steve M. Smith said the interconnection available within his company's broad data center footprint enables organizations to distribute IT closer to employees, customers and markets without having to build and manage the needed connectivity themselves. "We spend a lot of capital to build these facilities and companies take advantage of it."[20] Equinix IBXs peer IP traffic to over 90% of the world's Internet routes. Their Internet Exchanges (IXs) route Internet traffic between over 1,000 telecommunications networks worldwide.[21][22]

Cloud adoption has been consistently hindered by worries about data security.[23] Equinix has worked to address those concerns by creating the Equinix Cloud Exchange, which allows organizations to directly connect to cloud providers inside its data centers, rather than through connections established on the public Internet. Equinix describes the Cloud Exchange as a way to make the cloud "elastic," citing the exchange's ability to interconnect businesses to multiple cloud providers on-demand and simultaneously, which the company claims enables new efficiency and reduces complexity.[1][24]

Data center expansion in Brazil

In 2013, Equinix, still under the name of ALOG Data Centers of Brazil, launched its second data center in Rio de Janeiro and the fourth in the country. The initial investment was R$40 million (BRL), and the new data center was the only one in the city to have Tier III certification. The data center had a projected area of 15,000 square meters for container data centers and antenna installer.[25]

In 2014, the data center in Tamboré (SP) was the first in Brazil to install a new cooling technology that takes advantage of free cooling, used nine precision air conditioning units, and was estimated to reduce the infrastructure energy costs by 30% to 60%.[26]

In 2015, Equinix doubled the capacity of its second data center in Rio de Janeiro with a $40 million investment in the second phase of construction.[27]

Data center (IBX) locations

Americas
Country Data centers
United States 49 IBXs
Brazil 4 IBXs
Canada 2 IBXs
Asia-Pacific
Country/Territory Data centers
Australia 5 IBXs
China 4 IBXs
Hong Kong 4 IBXs
Indonesia 1 IBXs
Japan 12 IBXs
Singapore 3 IBXs
Europe and Middle East
Country Data centers
Bulgaria 1 IBXs
Finland 6 IBXs
France 7 IBXs
Germany 9 IBXs
Ireland 4 IBXs
Italy 3 IBXs
Netherlands 9 IBXs
Poland 2 IBXs
Sweden 3 IBXs
Switzerland 6 IBXs
Turkey 1 IBXs
United Arab Emirates 1 IBXs
United Kingdom 11 IBXs

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Cloud Complexity, Simplified". The New York Times. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  2. ↑ "With Performance Hub, Equinix Targets the Enterprise". Datacenter Knowledge. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Data centers eye the cloud as Hurricane Sandy bears down". Biz Journals. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Equinix Reports Fourth Quarter And Full Year 2015 Results". PR News Wire. Retrieved March 24, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Report: Colo Business Thrives as Enterprises Move to Cloud". Datacenter Knowledge. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Equinix co-founder Jay Adelson explains how Equinix got its name". Equinix. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  7. ↑ http://investor.equinix.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=122662&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=339782
  8. ↑ "Equinix partners with Indonesian firm for Jakarta data center". Data center Dynamics. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  9. ↑ http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/equinix-completes-230-5m-acquisition-of-hong-kong-data-center-firm-asia-tone
  10. ↑ "Equinix Expanding Global Data Center Footprint". Datacenter Knowledge. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Equinix Inc. Celebrates First Quarter As REIT With Massive Earnings Beat". Fool. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Equinix acquires Nimbo to bolster professional services". ZD NET. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Equinix to buy TelecityGroup for $3.6 billion, Interxion deal ended". Reuters. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  14. ↑ http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/european-commission-grants-clearance-for-equinix-offer-to-acquire-telecity-300178445.html
  15. ↑ Jamie, Davies, (2016-07-06). "Equinix sells off 8 data centres for $874m". Retrieved 2016-07-26.
  16. ↑ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/11/04/equinix-closes-bit-isle-deal-expands-japan-data-center-footprint/
  17. ↑ "Equinix completes Alog takeover". Data Center Dynamics. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Equinix seeing strong growth in Brazil despite recession". 451research.com. 2016-04-21. Retrieved 2016-07-18.
  19. ↑ "Entrevista com Peter Van Camp." The Wall Street Transcript. (February 13, 2006)
  20. ↑ "Equinix CEO Sees Further Consolidation in the Telecommunications Space". The Street. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  21. ↑ "Equinix Internet Exchange Data Sheet". Equinix. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Expand your reach with Platform Equinix.". Equinix. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Business trust in data security in the cloud at an all-time low". Global Services. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  24. ↑ "Equinix to Offer Private Links to Google's Public Cloud". Data center Knowledge. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  25. ↑ "Alog opens data centre in Rio de Janeiro". Telecom Paper. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  26. ↑ "Alog expande data center com solução "inovadora" da Emerson". Computer World. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  27. ↑ "Equinix investirá US$17 milhões e dobrará data center no RJ". Computer World. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
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