NEW YORK – Verizon today announced the launch of Software-Defined Interconnect (SDI), a solution that works with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric), offering organizations with a Private IP network direct connectivity to 115 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers around the globe within minutes.

SDI addresses the longstanding challenges associated with connecting customer networks to colocation data centers. To do this over traditional infrastructure requires costly build-outs, long lead times and complex provisioning. The SDI solution leverages an automated Application Program Interface (API) to quickly and simply integrate pre-provisioned Verizon Private IP bandwidth via ECX Fabric, while eliminating the need for dedicated physical connectivity. The result is to make secure colocation and interconnection faster and easier for customers to implement, often at a significantly lower cost.

“SDI is an addition to our best-in-class software-defined suite of services that can deliver performance ‘at the edge’ and support real-time interactions for our customers,” said Vickie Lonker, vice president of product management and development for Verizon. “Think about how many devices are connected to data centers, the amount of data generated, and then multiply that when 5G becomes ubiquitous. Enabling enterprises to virtually connect to Verizon’s private IP services by coupling our technology with the proven ECX Fabric makes it easy to provision and manage data-intensive network traffic in real time, lifting a key barrier to digital transformation.”

Verizon’s private Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network is seeing high double-digit traffic growth year-over-year, and the adoption of colocation services continues to proliferate as more businesses grapple with complex cloud deployments to achieve greater efficiency, flexibility and additional functionality in data management.

“Verizon’s new Software Defined Interconnect addresses one of the leading issues for organizations by improving colocation access. This offer facilitates a reduction in network and connectivity costs for accessing colocation data centers, while promoting agility and innovation for enterprises. This represents a competitive advantage for Verizon as it applies SDN technology to improve interconnecting its Private IP MPLS network globally,” said Courtney Munroe, group vice president at IDC.

“With Software-Defined Interconnect, a key barrier to digital transformation has been lifted. By allowing enterprises to virtually connect to Verizon’s private IP services using the proven ECX Fabric, SDI makes secure colocation and interconnection easier – and more financially viable – to implement than ever before,” said Bill Long, vice president, interconnection services at Equinix.

Verizon manages 500,000+ network, hosting, and security devices and 4,000+ networks in 150+ countries.