EdgeConneX's deployment of the Megaport SDN fabric in its data centers across the US is good news for its anchor tenants -- mostly cable operators -- but also creates a competitive choice for cloud connectivity.

Announced last week, the national deployment of software-defined networking from Megaport essentially jumpstarts EdgeConneX's ability to offer a flexible range of public cloud connections and comes after successful deployments in Portland -- where Amazon Web Services is also engaged -- in Detroit and most recently in Boston, where Comcast is already connected to the EdgeConneX data center.

EdgeConneX is working with Megaport USA, the US subsidiary of Australian-based Megaport, which is offering what it calls elastic interconnection to the cloud throughout Asia-Pacific and increasingly elsewhere as well. (See Megaport Takes Aim at Direct Connect Market and Megaport Brings SDN Fabric to EdgeConneX's Portland Site.)

"Some data center operators choose to build their own SDN fabrics, but we chose to establish a partnership and bring the cloud to the edge of the network," Don MacNeil, EdgeConneX CTO. That partnership enabled EdgeConneX to jumpstart the process of offering more flexible connections to the cloud.

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Right out of the gate, EdgeConneX customers such as Comcast -- one of its anchor tenants -- can now enhance their Ethernet services by offering direct cloud connections to popular public clouds including AWS.

"It's a great package deal, a great bundle for their enterprise and small-to-medium business sales force to roll this out," MacNeil tells Light Reading, giving the cable operators a greater opportunity to compete with existing services such as AT&T's NetBond and Verizon's Secure Cloud Interconnect.

"We feel now we have a nice nucleus for what we believe to be a cloud ecosystem," he continues. That includes the last mile provider, a carrier-neutral interconnection facility and the Megaport cloud exchange platform, but it is also expected to attract other cloud services including Datapipe, which already is part of some EdgeConneX centers and offers managed AWS options, as well as monitoring and service assurance options.

All of this is aimed at the growing number of businesses moving more applications into the cloud. Having an edge data center option can increase the comfort level for enterprises that want to downsize their own data centers but keep things local, and make cloud services more available for SMBs, MacNeil says.

EdgeConneX expects to continue its Megaport adoption as the latter moves into Europe, with its Amsterdam site likely first on the list, he adds.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading

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