Connectivity. Connectivity. Connectivity on demand.
As we have discussed in one of our recent articles about how ISPs need to update their business models, the needs of data center clients have changed. Clients need connectivity fast, on-demand and billed by the usage.
How Cologix is doing it right
As our readers know, we do have very open criticism towards Cologix for many things, but if there is one thing we have to give them is their connectivity services.
No other provider in the Montreal data center market has done as much as Cologix towards adapting their offerings according to what the data center market needs. Companies start small and need to expand quickly. Hybrid deployments need to scale Cloud and colocation infrastructures in a seamless way, and Cologix allows their clients to do just that.
Software-Defined Interconnection
Cologix’s SDI platform allows customers to connect to the Cloud, on-demand, and just pay for what they need. To this day the platform only supports Cloud connectivity, but we have been told that negotiations are in the process of having ISPs and other network providers on-board.
We don’t have much information about pricing yet, but the way that we understand it, it could literally crush all those expensive Cloud connection services. Even if colocation doesn’t look as flexible as the Cloud, their connectivity between their colo infrastructure and their Cloud provider needs to scale up and down just like their Cloud instances.
Metro Connect
Metro Connect is another great product from Cologix. Long story short, you can rent a 100M/1G L2L or a 10G Wave to and from any of their Montreal data centers (with the exception of 1-2 data centers, including the one in Drummondville). We have been told the 10G wave is only 500$ MRC and you don’t need a cross-connect to go with it.
That. Is. Insane.
You can literally build a multi-site virtualization cluster for quite cheap, or reach another network (like QIX) no matter if you are at the Technoparc or at Nun’s Island.
Connectivity between data centers is usually quite expensive and this allows you to do so much more on the cheap.
Some providers are quite close
Cologix has been doing great, but other providers also know about this. Some simply don’t care, others are just focusing on other things.
That said, we have the feeling that eStruxture is getting there. They have announced multiple partnerships to boost their connectivity offerings (including Cogent and Beanfield). We also heard that they have been talking with the board of QIX to have a POP of theirs within an eStruxture facility.
Want to deploy a data center in Montreal? Contact-us.