Strategies
were looking to establish POPs in new Internet, we have improved our sites the high quality of service levels and
sites. We looked at the new capacity [because] customers can peer with low latency. Low latency, in particular,
coming online and were very excited each other, and we provide more has drawn people to peering,
to talk to Interxion who were, Internet connections as well. We’ve regardless of the economic
astonishingly, developing new virtually filled the first floor and are justification of a fixed price when
capacity in the City. looking at expansion, with benefits for compared to the metered transit
us and LINX. connection.
Alongside the demands of its existing
customers, LINX was experiencing The relationship with LINX means that Dan Golding, Vice President and
rapid membership growth, putting McCulloch’s expansion plans are Research Director of analyst firm
further strain on existing capacity. accelerating. Tier 1 Research agrees that the
Fifty new members joined in 2007, arrangement will be mutually
and 2008 has seen at least one new Having someone like LINX helps us in beneficial for LINX and Interxion.
member join LINX each week. allowing us to expand where we LINX knocked on a lot of doors before
couldn’t before, helping new making its decision,î he says. The
Souter explains: Obviously we can’t customers to come in that otherwise result is very much a win/win
grow if we don’t have the necessary wouldn’t have chosen us. After the situation. LINX members now have a
infrastructure for new kit to be LINX deal was signed, we had 37 significantly increased geographical
housed. So it was essential that we cabinets come in as a direct result. presence, via these key colo sites, so
developed new POPs and, as As for existing Interxion customers, plenty of potential new customers.
importantly, new relationships with they have the facility to access
colos. From Interxion’s perspective, peering directly to IP traffic, gaining For Interxion, the LINX node allows its
we could show them that LINX lower latency, improved service levels customers to peer directly with LINX
London networks require space for and the reduced cost of IP traffic, not members. This means a much greater
transmission equipment and servers, to mention the opportunity for private choice for a range of connectivity and
for example, so we would be bringing peering — all courtesy of the LINX content delivery services, offering
them active consumers of space. partnership. greater network and application
From my point of view, selling the resilience, with the possibility of the
partnership to the LINX board, I was LINX has paid upfront for the cost of cost savings associated with more
able to reassure then that the establishing the peering node within competition.
Interxion site was not a finite space. the Interxion site, and will then work
with the colocation on terms linked to All we can predict is that the use of
They, as well as us, were already the business plan. As Souter puts it, the datacentre resource never seems
thinking about what’s next. Because We’ve looked each other in the eye to go down. No one writes code that
of the relationship with Interxion, the and agreed what we both want to takes up any less space than before.
business plan I put together was achieve. We’re sharing the risks and Yes, we do get more capabilities, but
much more ambitious than I had rewards. Orders are coming in straight not linearly compared to the extra
originally planned as I realised the away and I’m confident that we’ll beat resource required. LINX members are
potential of the existing site, as well what the business plan says by years amongst the most sophisticated
as their plans for a second London rather than months. buyers and sellers of services;
site. Interxion customers are similarly
Souter is also confident that the LINX sophisticated. It will be interesting to
Interxion’s McCulloch had similar peering model remains attractive see how both parties benefit from the
growth objectives. when compared to the transit relationship, especially with the advent
alternative. of developments such as cloud
We had 23 carriers on site, he says. computing – where different vendors
Going forward, we could continue to Direct peering used to be a no-brainer will be providing different cloud tasks.
run as a normal datacentre, or look for when compared to paying for transit, Resilience is critical – and this is the
partners, which is what we did with says Souter. Although transit prices beauty of the LINX relationship for
LINX. For Interxion, the benefits of have reduced significantly, network Interxion: cloud computing vendors
partnering with LINX are that we’ve providers like the control that broadly now have access to a whole new
become much more central to the meshed networks provide, along with customer base.
46 | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS | www.datacentresols.com September 2008
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