How Private Data Center Interconnections Can Optimize Your Enterprise Applications

Upgrade Your Communications with Private Interconnects

Enterprises continue to move more and more business applications to the cloud, taking full advantage of the price and performance gains that cloud-based data centers bring. Configuring your data center internet workings comes down to a fundamental decision – do you pay for a service offering, or do you "DIY", configuring your own optical switches and acquiring your own fiber assets.

 First, let’s level set. The graphic below shows a high-level topology for most enterprises. Given the performance needs of most enterprise applications, high speed optical connections are deployed between enterprise locations and data centers. Data Center Interconnects (DCI) refer to the connections between the various data centers, typically used for backup and redundancy. For most applications, backups are done real-time, requiring high-capacity optical connections between the locations.

DCI – Buy or Build?

If you’d like to buy a monthly service for DCI, you can explore your options and buy leased circuits from your service provider that are the appropriate capacity and performance to meet your business needs. These connections will be managed by your service provider – they will be your resource for issue resolution and SLA compliance. While this “set it and forget it” approach is quite easy, it can potentially come at a high price and not give you the flexibility you need if capacity needs grow. 

Another option is to build or self-manage your fiber assets. This DIY approach means acquiring or leasing your own fiber (and fiber will give you the most flexibility for expansion) and light it with your own optical switches.

If you head down this path and “build” DCIs on your own, you will need to pay an up-front investment for the switching hardware and colocation space and have the staff to manage it on your own. However, it will likely pay dividends over time. Often, break-even vs. leased lines are recognized in as little as 1-2 years.

Additional benefits of a DIY approach for data center interconnect include...

• Flexibility - You say jump, it says how far. When you need more capacity, you can light a new lambda (wavelength) at limited incremental cost.
• Performance - You will have the ownership and final say on the design of your interconnects, so your DCI is tailored to your specific needs and locations.
• Cost - Despite DIY’s up-front investment, it will generally pay back over time and become cash positive.

Consider Ribbon for Your Optical Switching Needs

 Apollo is Ribbon’s platform for optical switching. Apollo’s programmable and open optical networks were built for flexibility and choice. The solution provides optimal bandwidth while simultaneously providing future-proof solutions tailored to individual business goals. The program boasts optimized transport and programmable functions for automation.

Ribbon has innovated switches and increased capacity with ultra-cooling solutions in our latest Apollo model. Apollo leverages airflow in a newly engineered method to optimize its performance, with fans that maintain coolness and high-speed exchanges. Apollo optical transport and switching platforms combine to deliver high-performance access-to-core optical networking solutions at the lowest cost per bit.

By leveraging dark fiber and alien wavelengths, Ribbon’s DCI Apollo solutions utilize private software controllers that allow you to manage the flow of data between your systems. Our Apollo platforms support multiservice client interfaces including 400GbE, alien wavelengths, shared spectrum, and IP services.

The solution focuses on profitability through a multitude of powerful, value-added features like...

• 16G Fibre channel
• Ultra-Low Latency
• Layer One Optical Encryption
• Multi-Vendor Storage System Interworking
• LAN Extension Service
• Competitively Low Operational Expenses

...and gives you renewed autonomy over your data and its interconnects.

Download our solution brief on the Intra-Network Interconnect solution to learn more about how Ribbon’s DCI could advance your network and real-time data.