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Importance of DirectCLOUD for SMEs

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Ever thought about DirectCLOUD and how flexible it can be? DE-CIX’s DirectCLOUD Services have a large base of Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and AWS that serve 90% of the cloud market and allow SMEs to pick and choose different providers on a Single Interconnection Platform.

Keep in mind that using hybrid cloud can be challenging, which is why a Single Access Port is the solution. DE-CIX DirectCLOUD allows you to avoid multiple negotiations and contracts with partners and vendors. This enables you to Save Time and Money with best-in-class service to SMEs.

The Significance of DirectCLOUD became known during the Pandemic. The pandemic has undoubtedly changed the way SMEs conduct business, and no company understands this better than we do. Through a Single Access Port Services, DE-CIX’s DirectCLOUD connects SMEs all over the world to multi-cloud providers. As a trusted partner, we help everything from security and flexibility to cost-effectiveness as well as scalability.

When it comes to Digital Platform, Security is a major concern for SMEs because they are vulnerable to hackers as long as they use the internet, but data will be safe and secure once they switch to a Legally Compliant and Secure Cloud Interconnected Platform. DDoS attacks, prefix hijacking, BGP hijacking, and route leaks are less likely when SMEs get a DirectCLOUD service from all CSPs through a single port.

In the current state of affairs, a number of factors influence cost, one of which is bandwidth. Using our services, we can reduce bandwidth utilisation by up to 90% in Mumbai and up to 80% in other cities such as Chennai. SME’s can save a significant amount of money by utilising DirectCLOUD services. There will be no need for additional hardware, and you will not be limited to a single service provider or vendor. A single access port allows you to connect to multiple Cloud Services at a lower cost, with faster connectivity, and compatibility with current hardware and software.

Now comes the important matter of the benefits of using DirectCLOUD. In the world of cloud computing, there are numerous moving parts. There are dozens of cloud providers that offer a wide range of services to businesses like yours. The sheer number and variety of options can make it difficult to know what will work best for your business and how to navigate them. DirectCLOUD Services can assist you in getting started quickly by providing a customised mix of services tailored to your specific needs. When you jump from multiple Internet hops, you will notice an impact on resource productivity and performance due to latency and security, but when you switch to DirectCLOUD services, you will get a Fast, Simple, Stable, and Secure environment.

With its expanded perks and takeaways, DirectCLOUD is truly a forward-thinking service. The world of multi-cloud is fast evolving and becoming crowded. From Red Hat to Oracle, Microsoft to Google, there are a number of platforms, products, and services competing for our attention. So, how do you choose the right cloud for your business? Why should you go with them instead of their competitors? DirectCLOUD is all you need if you’re looking for these solutions.

Continue reading to learn how DirectCLOUD can help you build your online presence and grow your business today. Whether you’re a start-up or an established company, we at DE-CIX India are excited to support you and grow your business.

4 Challenges for Connected Cars in Practice

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There is currently a lot of talk about connected cars and autonomous driving. But for them to actually succeed in reality, there are some prerequisites: In the future, automakers must see themselves as digital companies and the necessary infrastructures must be expanded. Of course, data protection and security must also always be maintained. Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International, the world’s leading Internet Exchange operator, has formulated four of the most important challenges:

 

1. From driving performance to digital performance

Performance, acceleration from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour, fuel type, and fuel consumption: traditionally, driving performance and such engine parameters as these played a decisive role in the selection of a car. This could change in the future, as digitalization makes ever greater advances in vehicle design and operation. Studies by Deloitte and Mckinsey suggest that in the future, the digital aspects of a vehicle will play a much greater role in purchasing decisions. Software will become an important differentiator in the market. The trend is moving towards “everything from a single source” for the handling of car-related data: classic carmakers are becoming software developers, and on the other hand even digital pioneers like Apple are trying their hand at car making.

2. The question of data sovereignty

The trend toward an integrated offering (vehicle and software from the same manufacturer) must also be seen against the backdrop of data usage and data protection. The data that connected cars generate masse is a valuable asset that no one wants to lose control over. But even more important is not to jeopardize the trust of customers. Anyone who opts for a connected vehicle wants the manufacturer to handle their data with great care. Should problems arise here, the reputation of established brands would be seriously jeopardized. Whether through in-house development or in collaboration with trusted third parties, car manufacturers must be able to guarantee that data protection and control of the data is always, without question, maintained.

3. Latency – the critical factor

Latencies, i.e. delays in data transmission, are experienced in everyday life, for example, in the form of jitter and buffering when streaming videos or online games. These effects are annoying, but not critical. It’s a different story with connected vehicles: if, for example, the communication and navigation of emergency vehicles were to be impaired, serious and potentially life-threatening situations could quickly arise. If cars are to be able to drive autonomously at some point, latency will become an even more crucial safety factor. It can’t be that critical data from your car is transferred to a data center hundreds of miles away, and then back again. This is because data, like most other things, cannot travel faster than light, and thus geographic proximity becomes an essential parameter to meet the high demands of autonomous mobility. In the future, this will require small, decentralized data centers along important transport routes to ensure fast and reliable data transfer.

4. Measures for ensuring cyber security

The possibility of hackers gaining external control of a connected car is one of the worst imaginable horror scenarios of autonomous mobility. What can manufacturers do to prevent such attacks, but also less dramatic ones? peering (exchanging data) at an Internet Exchange is an ideal measure for shielding sensitive data traffic of connected or autonomous cars from unauthorized access and manipulation.

The bottom line:

Connected and autonomous cars will fundamentally transform the world of mobility. Consumer preferences will change, and established brands will need to adapt in order to remain successful. At the same time, digital infrastructure needs to be re-conceptualized and expanded to meet the increasing requirements in terms of data transmission and processing. Internet Exchanges such as DE-CIX, where all threads come together and where secure communication takes place between all stakeholders, play a central role as digital data hubs.

DE-CIX Predictions: 4 Trends for 2022

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Unfortunately, the pandemic still won’t loosen its grip on the world, and this winter again many activities will need to take place online – from Christmas shopping to events and celebrations. Reliable and fail-safe Internet connections with the lowest possible latency are thus becoming increasingly important – for our private lives, certainly, but above all for the economy as a whole. Here, a significant role is played by Internet Exchanges (IXs). They guarantee a smooth, secure, and fast exchange of data packets between networks of any size, ranging from city carriers to streaming providers and cloud service providers. Dr. Thomas King, CTO at DE-CIX, has identified 4 trends that will shape the connected world, the evolution of Internet trends, and the interconnection business in 2022:

1. Automation: Booking interconnection by click

Automation is no longer just a topic in manufacturing. More and more industries are developing solutions to automate routine IT tasks to become more flexible. Especially in uncertain times like we are currently experiencing, flexibility is a crucial asset. If, for example, a retailer’s business activities suddenly shift from the physical store to the online store, they must be able to react quickly so as not to alienate their customers with downtime. Internet Exchange operators are responding by offering the chance to manage interconnection services via both API and self-service portals. This means that the services at the Internet Exchange can be booked just as easily as computing power can be at the well-known cloud providers. This is possible because a large portion of the infrastructure at an Internet Exchange is now virtualized. But there are also automation approaches in the area of physical infrastructure. In addition to an API and a sophisticated self-service portal, DE-CIX in Frankfurt, for example, now has three patch robots in operation, which reposition cables fully automatically in just seconds, at any time of day.

2. A new era of data exchange

Never before has more data been exchanged than today. But problems remain: For example, when it comes to the confidential, bilateral exchange of large data packets, these are sometimes still stored on hard disks and physically transported. In the future, in the context of Gaia-X, high-performance and confidential data channels will be developed to address this issue. The basic idea behind the Gaia-X project is to create a sovereign European system for secure data exchange based on decentralized, interconnected infrastructure services. Another security-related service that will be increasingly in demand is Closed User Groups, which allow different actors to connect with their private networks via an IX. Closed User Groups enable enterprises to create their own interconnection environment – away from the public peering infrastructure. They can connect with select partners, suppliers, and customers present in multiple different locations, in order to share data securely and efficiently. The interconnection platform provides a direct connection between members of the Closed User Group, with optimized security measures and improved performance. This allows business partners or suppliers to quickly, securely, and directly exchange the data needed to develop or operate complex digital services – ranging from digital health services to autonomous driving. While cloud solutions facilitate data storage and handling, interconnection platforms are key to enabling many-to-many data exchange.

3. “Glocalization” is gaining traction

Various new technology applications such as virtual reality, cloud gaming, and e-health, not to mention connected and autonomous cars, are creating ever higher demands for the lowest possible latencies. Especially for mobility applications, extremely low latencies of less than one millisecond are crucial. Data does not move infinitely fast, so it is necessary for the nearest data center to be a maximum of around 80 kilometers away. A centralized Internet structure, where exchanges exist only in metropolitan areas, can no longer cope with these developments. So, we will see the hosting and processing of data move increasingly close to the edge. In other words, moving closer to the actual location of the consumers of this data and data processing. To some extent, this is already the case: An American streaming provider will host its new series in European data centers when it launches them there. Currently, however, this is only the case in large hubs. We are already seeing accelerated growth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 Internet Exchanges, such as the Ruhr-CIX in Germany, which will open up populous regions further removed from the existing digital hubs. In fact, Germany is leading the way here. However, this development will also continue globally, and Internet Exchanges will in future be found not only in the established digital metropolises, but also in regional centers, all over the world.

4. The car of tomorrow is connected

A stable data connection is becoming increasingly important for vehicles. Real-time information on the nearest charging station, for example, can be crucial for the operating radius of electric cars. At the same time, there are more and more advances in connected cars and autonomous driving, and these also bring high data demand and the need for low latency with them. Next year will therefore see a continuation of a trend that we are already seeing today: Automakers are becoming digital companies. They then have to decide which systems and services to outsource to big tech companies and which to build and operate in-house. In both cases, what is needed is a framework for data exchange between car and server and between different partners. This data exchange needs to be as fast as it is secure.

The bottom line:

We cannot predict the further course of the global Covid-19 pandemic. But we can say, looking at the last two years, that the growth of digital services has increased massively. Where direct, physical exchange is not possible, these services take its place. Content providers, network operators, Internet Exchanges and, increasingly, individual companies that were not previously part of the tech sector are working to provide the infrastructure for these services not only to people in digitally developed centers, but also in previously less well-served regions. The guiding principles are the basic needs of our digital age: Flexibility, security and speed.

10. Peering is a Quality Seal
(10 Reasons To Peer)

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This is the final article in our “reasons to peer” series, and it is dedicated to the non-technical benefit of peering – how it can be used as a quality seal to grow your business.

Assurance of a well-operated network

If you are a company that sells network services to other companies or individuals, peering at an Internet Exchange offers you a chance to show your customers and prospects that you care about the quality of your service. Better latency, less packet loss, and higher throughput are all benefits of peering, and many network providers use their Internet Exchange membership as part of their marketing strategy and as an assurance of a well-operated network.

As part of an Internet Exchange, you can leverage the brand and present yourself as a member of the community.

Ready to start peering?

We hope you enjoyed this series. You can download our white paper “Ten reasons why you should peer” to get a quick overview of all the benefits we presented. And if you have any peering related questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at sales@de-cix.in

You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

 

The Internet is Here to Stay – From Small Beginnings to India’s Journey Into the Digital Future

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As we celebrate International Internet Day this year, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what a revolutionary technology it has become. The Internet we know today would not have been possible even a couple of decades ago. That’s because bandwidth has been constantly growing – in a push and pull between need and potential – for as long as the Internet has been a medium for private and commercial communication. It has always been hard to say what drives what. When larger bandwidths become available, very quickly new applications emerge that exploit it. But existing applications that are underperforming because of a lack of bandwidth also drive the growth of bandwidth (e.g. online video). And as applications become more bandwidth-hungry, new solutions are being implemented – with the rollout of fiber and mobile technologies like 5G in cities, and LEO satellite connectivity to connect off-grid locations – to bring more of India online in an acceptable quality for modern use-cases.

Because what began as a scientific curiosity more than a quarter of a century ago is now an essential part of life: the Internet, we can be sure, is here to stay. In the past two years, it has helped people and businesses get through one of the most significant global crises of recent history. The Covid-19 pandemic gave further impetus to innovation and digital transformation, everywhere. Companies and organisations are now being challenged to digitalise in order to keep up with this accelerated speed of development, and the expectations of increasingly tech-savvy users.

No slowdown in sight – digital transformation continues at pace

The past two years have resulted in unprecedented growth in digital participation, worldwide. In 2020, DE-CIX recorded more data traffic across its Internet Exchanges (IX) worldwide than ever before seen: In total, 32 exabytes – roughly the same amount of data required for an eight-million-year-long video call. Looking at DE-CIX India, at the beginning of the first lockdown, the IX experienced growth in data traffic of more than 20% practically overnight. It was clear to see what people were using the Internet for: traffic from the use of collaboration tools increased immensely, while video streaming grew by 120%, and gaming by more than 80%. After this enormous growth, many expected a slowdown in investment as the world began to emerge out the other end of global lockdowns. But exactly the opposite has occurred: the crisis has accelerated digital transformation for companies across the board, and digital work and entertainment is becoming a normal part of life.

So, rather than a slowdown, we see that further investments are needed and are being planned. A market survey undertaken by DE-CIX of globally-acting enterprises found that, having conquered the initial set of challenges related to working from home triggered by Covid-19, companies are now beginning the further task of integrating remote working effectively into their overall IT strategy for the long term. Close to three quarters of these enterprises (74%) plan to purchase a new service for interconnecting with the Microsoft Software as a Service cloud within the next two years for their increasingly virtual working environments. Therefore, digital transformation is continuing at pace around the world. The Internet really is here to stay.

How the Internet developed – explosive growth in performance and bandwidth

Looking back through the history of the Internet, it is clear that what we have available at any one point has always seemed so impressive at the time. In the world of Internet Exchanges (IXs), typified by the story of DE-CIX, milestones have come and gone – with connections of 100 Megabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GE), then 10 GE, and a few years later with 100 GE. Initially, such bandwidths seemed thoroughly extravagant, and then just as suddenly it’s a thing of the past. The DE-CIX India backbone was upgraded in 2020 to 320GE, and at DE-CIX Frankfurt, one of the largest IXs in the world, the backbone has recently been upgraded to 400GE – which seems huge today, but experience tells us that in another ten years we’ll look back and laugh.

To put the growth in perspective, data centers in the year 2000 were dimensioned for 500 Watts per m2 (= rack). Today, we find dimensions ranging up to 25 KW per rack. This represents 50 times the power consumption of the early Internet data centers, but with even greater growth in performance. Back then, little thought was given to energy efficiency, whereas nowadays we understand that data centers can play a major role in the development of sustainable digitalisation. Today, ensuring the greatest output per KW is fundamental to the design of the data center itself and the hardware that goes in it.

Meanwhile, back at the turn of the millennium, 2 Megabits (Mbits) of bandwidth was standard for commercial high-speed connections – and having access to one of these was hugely expensive. Today, companies are connected to the Internet with between 100 Mbits – 50 times more bandwidth – and 1 Gigabit (Gbit) – 500 times the bandwidth – or they have fiber to the building, in which case bandwidth can be much, much greater.

And large bandwidths are no longer necessarily dependent on a physical connection – with the innovations in mobile Internet (eg. 5G) and satellite Internet able to connect homes, cars, manufacturing plants and business locations wirelessly, where necessary.

Latency is the new currency for modern applications and digital business

As economic activity moves from the analog to the digital sphere, there is one thing that all modern applications have in common, and this is related to the purely physical characteristics of the speed of light. In the digital infrastructure industry, we call this “latency”. Latency has to do with reaction times – the time it takes data to be sent for processing or analysis and for a reaction to occur or a result to be visible. Latency is decisive for the time it takes for a transaction to be registered when you’re making online purchases; for getting a smooth reaction and good user experience when using applications that are hosted in the cloud; for the time between executing a maneuver in an online game and your counterpart experiencing the result. Latency is what allows you to enjoy high-definition online sports streaming in real time and reap the rewards of modern education in high-quality hybrid schooling.

And that’s only seen from the perspective of the user. From a business perspective, latency issues cost you money. Productivity related to virtual desktops, conference and video calls, and all that is entailed in working from home is dependent on high-performance interconnection. But also industrial activities like remote robotics, AI-supported research and development, and the advances in the product development of the connected car would not be conceivable without the performance, security, and resilience that comes with the lowest possible latency. So, latency in digital services and applications is truly revenue-related.

All kinds of network operators: carriers and Internet service providers (ISPs), application providers, OTTs, cloud operators, enterprises, and other organisations can access both the lowest latency and the highest resilience and security for their interconnection needs by interconnecting directly with the networks they need to share data with. BY connecting through a location that harbours a strong and vibrant digital ecosystem of diverse network types, they put themselves right on the spot, where the economy of the future is playing out.

Interconnection infrastructure that connects everything

Today we have the beginnings of an interconnection infrastructure that connects everything. In the future there will be a much more intricate mesh of data suppliers, data processors, and data users, with

1. the gapless rollout of broadband through fiber-to-the-building, metro and rural fiber networks, mobile networks, and LEO satellite networks for more far-flung regions,
2. the rollout of 5G and Wi-Fi 6, and the development of large-scale IoT projects for cities, industry, mobility, and the healthcare sector,
3. increasing levels of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the handling of data, and
4. the increasing number of points where data is collected and processed and the enormous amounts of data generated, collected, summarised, and sent somewhere to do something new with it.

In this world, interconnection will become more and more important, and the infrastructure for interconnecting networks will become the foundation of the economy and industry – as essential to India’s future life and business as power and water lines are today. Latency is the new currency for the exciting next generation of applications and services. This means that digital infrastructure will be even more important in the future, and these needs are universal in the modern world. Because the Internet is here to stay.

– By Sudhir Kunder, Country Director, DE-CIX India

9. Peering Connects You to an Interconnection Ecosystem
(10 Reasons To Peer)

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Peering at an Internet Exchange means being part of an interconnection ecosystem. While the exchange itself is a small niche topic for those who operate it, the ecosystem around it offers a very broad range of possibilities for doing business – another reason to peer.

While the Internet Exchange (IX) or Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is the physical infrastructure which lets networks exchange traffic, the networks who want to peer at one create their own ecosystem. They have large demands on data center space, backhauling, IP transit, voice and VoIP business, CDN clusters, maintenance and operational staff, MPLS and much more. In the big hubs, this is a billion-dollar business.

Peering is about community

Beyond business and engineering, a successful ecosystem also requires the building of a community. Peering requires a common understanding and mutual agreements for the benefit of better, more resilient Internet infrastructure.

Interconnection beyond peering

The leading Internet Exchange operators connect thousands of networks both locally and through remote peering at their locations around the world. They also offer additional interconnection services such as security solutions, cloud connectivity solutions, direct connections with SDWANs, and the possibility to create Closed User Groups.

Internet Exchanges have become the enabler for a whole interconnection ecosystem connecting businesses and people in the most transparent, secure, and performant way.

 

You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

The Five Star Hotel Experience will Start at the Data Center

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Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX global speaks about what technology can do for the hospitality industry in the near future.

It has taken the pandemic for the hospitality industry to realise the true potential of technology and the virtual world when it comes to business. ETHospitalityWorld spoke with Ivo Ivanov, the Germany-based CEO of DE-CIX (pronounced dee-kicks) Global— the largest internet exchange in the world.

“DE-CIX operates platforms, for interconnection of different types of networks, cloud networks, content networks like TV streaming networks, video on demand networks, collaborative work applications, networks, of course, gaming networks, as well as all of the excess networks, like 5g networks, small ISP, and fiber. We have started to see a new type of participants on the different platforms, mainly enterprises,” Ivanov said, explaining what his company does.

Ivanov firmly believed that the hospitality industry would benefit from digitization in the future extremely well, for which they would need to do the right homework to be able to create the right balance. Benefiting from digitalisation would also require getting involved into infrastructure. And this is where his company would be of use.

“We offer different services on the platform which have something in common—the direct interconnection between the application and the hospitality organisation network. Without intermediate without any hubs. This reduces the latency dramatically. If we talk about applications, like live streaming, virtual or augmented reality applications, they’re so sensitive on the performance side, they don’t like huge latency, they want to be extremely performable is the physical interaction on the traffic flow is very solid and stable in this requires the shortest path, and we deliver the fabric solution for this path.

“It’s also about security. The more direct the interconnection is between the application between the cloud computing instance, between the traffic delivery source and the hospitality network at the other end, the lower the risk for attacks, the lower the risk for men in the middle, IP hijacking and so on,” he explained.

The potential for what the hospitality industry could do using virtual tools was immense, he said, “The hospitality business is a very physical one. To be honest, you cannot enjoy a digital swimming pool. People want to swim—but the hospitality company can digitally influence this decision of the guests. Virtualizing the selection of different hotels in advance, giving the potential guest, a chance to experience the features of a hotel resort as well as use it to stay in touch with them are advantageous,” he said adding that both virtual as well as augmented reality platforms require solid infrastructure, which is something that needs to be invested in.

“I love to say that in the future, the experience of the five-star hotel will start in the datacenter—will start in our fabric using the solid infrastructure. Because as the hospitality companies want to impress the guests, they will want to start this in advance in the digital world,” he concluded.

8. Peering Improves User Experience
(10 Reasons To Peer)

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When it comes to end-user experience, peering has a lot of advantages compared to IP transit-only designs. Better latency, less packet loss, and higher throughput all mean that your services work better and your users will be happy.

We have already talked about latency in a previous article in this “reason to peer” series, when we said even a 2-second delay in the loading time of a website is sufficient to increase the bounce rate more than 100%.

Another good example is gaming in the cloud: Cloud gaming providers have to select their servers and Internet Exchanges through which the game data is transported in such a way that they are closer to the gamers, meaning that the data path between the user and the server is as short as possible, resulting in the best possible latency and the best possible gaming experience.

Increase performance and access speed

Peering can also solve some of the challenges larger enterprises are facing. From video conferencing to cloud computing, digital capabilities are essential for any organization that wants to build a more efficient workforce – especially at a time when people are increasingly working from home. Rising volumes of IP traffic need to be distributed efficiently and cost-effectively to employees around countries and around the world. By peering at an Internet Exchange, you can increase the content performance and access speeds, enhance productivity, and reduce frustration with unresponsive applications.

 

You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

7. Peering Makes Partnerships Possible
(10 Reasons To Peer)

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As we have learned in this reasons to peer series, peering has many advantages, ranging from financial benefits to having a more robust and stable network. It can also offer opportunities for new partnerships.

Easy start for premium services

Internet Exchanges not only offer you access to hundreds of networks for peering, but also to hundreds of possible partners e.g. for buying or selling MPLS connections (known as: MPLS NNI). You can target hundreds of networks without organizing or buying additional expensive fiber patches or ending up in problems with different, not matching data center locations. Peering on an Internet Exchange platform gives you an easy, cheap, and quick start for premium services.

Further, you can also go for dedicated VLAN connections to other members if you need a logical separation of the handover of these services.

You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

India Needs to Scale Up Investments to Improve Internet Access in Rural Areas – Ivo Ivanov, the CEO of DE-CIX International

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Ivo Ivanov, the CEO of DE-CIX International, one of the largest Internet Exchanges in the world, talks about the infrastructure India needs to ensure that everyone in the country has access to the Internet.

Internet has become the backbone of everyday life in India. Be it access to ration or getting vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus, online has become the new normal. Yet, the country still has a long way to go before the technology reaches to all. Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International, one of the largest Internet Exchanges in the world, talks about the infrastructure India needs to ensure everyone has access to the Internet.

 

Does India have the required infrastructure necessary for handling the internet traffic that the present situation asks for? What kind of investment do you feel is necessary to make India’s internet seamless?

India’s Internet infrastructure has significantly improved, and the pandemic has been a prime factor for this transformation. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the geographical density of Internet infrastructure must be increased. While there are already hundreds of millions of Indians using the Internet, not even 30% of rural India has access. This needs to change. More investment is required in the whole array of digital infrastructure and connectivity options — there is a need for more fibre and mobile connectivity, connecting the rural regions, as well as developing edge connectivity.

The adoption of technologies like 5G and Wifi-6 is very important for economic development as it enables businesses to fully exploit the advantages of the digital economy. Added to this, there is a need for greater investment in the construction of data centres so that digital content, applications, and cloud services can be housed as close to the users as possible. Besides these, the establishment of connectivity to LEO satellites can bring the Internet to places that fibre and mobile networks can’t get to.

India can expand its role in the global market by scaling up investments in physical infrastructure and investing in the collaboration of local and global entrepreneurs, like digital information technology services, including big data, Internet of Things, and analytics. All of the digital infrastructures also need to be interconnected via high-performance Internet Exchanges to share data at the local level and allow data to flow, reducing the distance data needs to travel and therefore improving the performance of the applications and content.

At the start of the pandemic, we saw companies scrambling to increase the data plan. Is there a supply-demand mismatch in India at this moment?

The rising demand in Internet traffic we saw last year due to the pandemic, while remarkable in its scale, could be absorbed easily and smoothly and without concerns at the DE-CIX IXs.

We saw peak traffic records broken at our IXs in India during 2020. At DE-CIX India, from February 2020 to February 2021, we saw significant growth in different segments of data traffic, reflecting the needs of people during a lockdown —keeping in touch with others, entertainment, and access the cloud and virtual offices. OTT and VOD traffic also grew very strongly, followed by gaming and ISP. Then CDN and Social and Online Media traffic grew by almost the same scale, whereas hosting traffic, bringing up the rear, nonetheless showed a strong rise.

There is a gap in customer expectations, especially from work-from-home perspective. Many organizations struggle to keep up with the demand of their staff. As such, the sudden increase in network usage was not expected and the existing company infrastructure was not built accordingly. But, the Internet infrastructure itself was and is capable of absorbing the increase in data traffic experienced in India throughout the pandemic.

 

As you mentioned that the cyclone has affected the exchanges. With extreme weather conditions becoming common is India, is it possible of shielding the network from vagaries of nature?

Too often, when there isn’t enough infrastructure in place, be it railroads, bridges, or digital infrastructure, a region becomes vulnerable to single points of failure which can have an impact also further afield.

Therefore, there is great value in having distributed infrastructure — meaning that if multiple networks cover a region, then they can interconnect with each other locally to create more resilient paths for data to travel from point A to point B. It is important to have several ways to route around an area that is affected, for example, by storm damage, to make sure that other areas are not also impacted.

This is why we have our interconnection infrastructure in India distributed across 15 data centres providing both greater geographical density and locational redundancy. Having a range of infrastructure providers — network operators, Internet service providers, data centre operators, etc. — interconnected via an IX increases the resilience of the Internet.

By connecting to DE-CIX, these infrastructure providers and their customers benefit from the largest carrier and data centre neutral ecosystem in India. As a result, India is becoming increasingly capable of withstanding challenging conditions, but certainly, there is still work to be done. The pandemic has made organizations very well aware of the importance of state-of-the-art infrastructure and the need to be well equipped for extreme weather conditions.

Internet is the backbone of everything in India. But we still get to hear of dark areas where the network fails. As a service provider, what’s your analysis of this?

As a provider of interconnection services, we do not operate backbone or data centre, but partner with operators of all kinds of digital infrastructure. We are, in fact, always looking for and developing new techniques to expand the digital ecosystem both at global and local levels. I think one of the most exciting developments for India currently is the potential of LEO (Low-Earth Orbit) satellite Internet provision, which can bring remote communities online to join the global Internet.

These communities are struggling to run online businesses and gain proper access to the Internet as a result of their current connectivity solutions. These often involve copper cable networks and at most geostationary satellite connectivity, resulting in Internet speeds down to less than one megabit per second and latency (response time) as high as 400 milliseconds end-to-end.

Through its “Space-IX” Program, DE-CIX is ready to support the infrastructure needs of the whole range of space-network operators, in particular LEO satellite operators, with terrestrial interconnection, providing them with an interconnection solution that enables access to terrestrial content, cloud, and application networks. This can have a substantial impact on reducing the dark areas on the Indian map and of course, further adds to the diversity and resilience of the Indian Internet as a whole.

Tell us about your operations in India. Any investment plans or business figures you want to share

Regarding our operations, DE-CIX runs four Indian IXs in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and Delhi, interconnecting 375-plus networks in 15 PoPs, and plays home to the largest carrier and data centre-neutral ecosystem in India. The largest of these, DE-CIX Mumbai, gained the ranking late last year of the second-largest IX, based on connected networks, in the Asia Pacific region.

DE-CIX India also offers a single access port for multi-services, meaning that a single port can be used by any connected network for both interconnection services, peering, and the DirectCloud Service. DE-CIX has recently received a patent for ‘Blackholing Advanced’ in Germany as a DDoS prevention mechanism, and this will soon be available in India as well.

Overall, what we see developing at the moment is that society and businesses in India and around the globe are entering a new era of digitalization in which digital applications and services will be needed everywhere, for everyone. To ensure best performance of digital applications and services, latency needs to be minimized; meaning that digital applications need to get closer to the users because latency is the new currency.

To achieve this, the digital infrastructure that houses and transports data needs to be at the edge of the network — as close as possible to the point where the user connects to the network or where the data is being generated. DE-CIX also plans to continue expanding to new locations, together with partners, to increase the geographical density of interconnection services, and therefore bring content and applications closer to the user.

We also make it possible to order interconnection infrastructure as a managed service, a highly scalable turn-key solution that enables data centre operators and other stakeholders in India to create their own interconnection ecosystem.

Beyond this, we are constantly innovating the service portfolio, bringing tailor-made interconnection services to an ever-wider range of customers. While Internet Exchanges have traditionally been seen as locations where carriers, ISPs, content networks, and content delivery networks interconnect to exchange data, we are now seeing an increasing number of participants joining from other industry segments, like healthcare, finance, retail, logistics, entertainment (such as gaming) and of course, automotive.

This is a development that DE-CIX aims to support in order to ensure a smooth transition to a digital society and economy. Having established a Cloud Exchange in India in 2020, we have now taken our service offering to the enterprise segment further – enabling an enterprise to build a closed and secure private ecosystem, a Closed User Group (CUG), within existing DE-CIX ecosystems. In this way, the Indian enterprises can further minimize the geographical distance to the other networks – and thus optimize the latency – as well as improving security and resilience.

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