Hey Friends,
Happy Monday and Happy 4th of July to readers in the US, which is now about ~50% of all subscribers. It's also my birthday today, and I like beer, so if you've enjoyed reading the newsletter and want to support the work I put into creating it (which takes ~7-10 hrs a week), you can buy me a beer or two if you feel so inclined.
It’s also time to introduce this month’s sponsor, Futuriom, a technology research firm focused on emerging cloud technologies. Be sure to check out Futuriom's free reports and research and get in touch with their team if you're interested in any of their research products and services. Thank you, Futuriom for sponsoring Foundations for the month of July.
Let's get into this week's update.
Your Weekly Briefing
Data Centers and Interconnection
Digital Realty published a blog post announcing the launch of ServiceFabric Connect—the first of several services available via its new virtual interconnection platform. ServiceFabric Connect provides virtualized Layer 2/3 connectivity, as well as Virtual Routers, and is integrated with Megaport's Network-as-a-Service platform. Digital Realty says that ServiceFabric is now generally available at 61 data centers in 32 metros across its global data center portfolio including 14 markets in North America, 13 markets in EMEA, and 4 markets in Asia Pacific.
ServiceFabric in North America includes 10G and 100G ports available in 25 data centers across 14 metros including Seattle, Portland, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Northern Virginia, New York, Boston, and Toronto, supported by a 100G network backbone.
In Europe, connectivity options include 10G and 100G ports available in 30 data centers across 13 metros including Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Marseille, Madrid, Zurich, Brussels, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Stockholm also supported by a 100G network backbone.
In Asia Pacific, connectivity options include 10G and 100G ports available in 6 data centers across 4 metros including Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo, but supported by a 10G network backbone.
Equinix added F5 NGINX Plus load balancers to its growing lineup of NFV devices available on Equinix Network Edge, which now includes 16 virtual devices across 9 vendors. Link
DE-CIX expanded its distributed internet exchange platform to another data center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Link
Luxembourg and Belgium internet exchange points, LU-CIX & BNIX announced an agreement to interconnect platforms. Link
The France-IX quarterly review provided updates on technical operations and business activities. Highlights include the expansion and launch of a new IX in the northern city of Lille, a capacity upgrade at Equinix PA6 driven by a 50% increase in traffic over the last 12mo, and the continued deployment of Nokia hardware across multiple locations. Link
Other Data Center/Interconnection News and Updates
- Bloomberg is reporting that several bidders have emerged for Malaysia’s Time Dotcom data center portfolio (AIMS) including DigitalBridge, BDx, Equinix, DigitalEdge and STT. Link
- Following up on last week's commentary about Ireland's energy crisis in regards to data centers, DCK published an update to the original article that was taken due, apparently due to an error in the previous article headline. Link
- Several investors filed suit against Switch, claiming it did not properly disclose key financial details in relation to its recent acquisition by DigitalBridge. Link
- Meta has abandoned plans for its data center campus in Zeewolde, Netherlands according to local media. Link
Cloud Infrastructure
Google opened a new cloud region in Paris, France (europe-west 9), it's 34th or 35th region (Recent press for Milan and this one for Paris both indicate this was the 34th region). Link
AWS Outpost racks are now available in Panama Link and AWS EKS Anywhere is generally available for bare metal. Link
The AWS CloudFront network now spans more than 400 locations in 90 cities across 47 countries. Recent additions include another site in Chicago (its 19th according to AWS Marketing) along with new locations in Sofia, Bulgaria, Athens, Greece, Bucharest, Romania, Budapest, Hungary, and Zagreb, Croatia in Europe, Nairobi, Kenya in Africa, Bangkok, Thailand, and Jakarta, Indonesia in Southeast Asia, as well as additional locations in Australia and New Zealand. For context, AWS CloudFront reached 200 total locations almost 3 years ago in October 2019. Link
AWS added another Direct Connect on-ramp in Dublin, Ireland hosted at the Servecentric data center, its 3rd in the market in addition to current on-ramps at Eircom and Digital Realty/Interxion sites. Link
The Information reported that Microsoft is battling capacity constraints with more than two dozen data centers globally operating with limited server capacity. AWS and Google Cloud are also said to be dealing with capacity constraints according to a person that works for a customer of both cloud providers. Link
“But over two years later, more than two dozen Azure data centers in countries around the world are operating with limited server capacity available to customers, according to two current Microsoft managers contending with the issue and an engineer who works for a major customer. And in more than half a dozen Azure data centers—including a key one in central Washington state and others in Europe and Asia—server capacity is expected to remain limited until early next year, said one of the Microsoft managers.”
“Across the globe, we have seen unprecedented growth in the cloud. With this surge…we’ve taken steps to address customer increases in capacity while also expediting server deployment in our datacenters,” said Craig Cincotta, a Microsoft spokesperson, in an emailed statement.”
Other Cloud News and Updates
- VMware announced vSphere+ and vSAN+ to help customers bring the benefits of the cloud to on-prem infrastructure. Link
- Vultr added new bare metal plans. Link
- OVH reported earnings w/ revenue of €202M, up ~26% y/y. Link
- Vercel Edge Middleware for Next.js is now generally available. Link
- Prosimo raised $30M in a Series B round of funding for its multi-cloud networking platform. Link
The future of cloud technology is here.
Futuriom is a research and analysis company focused on next-generation cloud and communications technologies, providing industry-leading insight across a series of Cloud Market Trend Reports. Through end-user surveys and interviews, analyzing public data, and talking to the smartest people in specific technology segments, these free reports cover a range of topics from SD-WAN to SASE and multi-cloud networking. Explore all of Futuriom's reports here.
Further Reading
EU executive eyes Big Tech’s money to save 5G – POLITICO
Megaport puts defence mandate on the line, takes pitches
June 2022 Web Server Survey | Netcraft News
From Code to Cloud: Security Themes for 2022 and Beyond - Battery Ventures
FACT SHEET: President Biden and G7 Leaders Formally Launch the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment | The White House
Here’s How Fast Starlink Has Gotten Over the Past Year | Ookla®
Revealing Bias in Internet Measurements | RIPE Labs
Global Fixed Broadband Take-up Forecasts by Technology for up to 2030
FWA to exceed 460 million subscriptions by 2030
Blazing a trail in cloud computing; how Walmart built one of the largest hybrid clouds in existence