Equinix.com

EQUINIX WHITE PAPER

EQUINIX | DIMENSION DATA

HYBRID CLOUD SOLUTIONS TO EMPOWER YOUR ENTERPRISE

TABLE OF CONTENTS | 2

TAB

LE O

F C

ON

TEN

TS

Equinix.com 1Introduction .................................................................................................. 3

How to Make the Migration To the Cloud ..................................................... 4

Using Equinix and Dimension Data to Empower Your Enterprise ............... 6

Summary ..................................................................................................... 7

INTRODUCTION | 3

Organizations across all industries are looking for alternatives to building and managing their own data centers. This paper looks at the market trends driving decisions to extend or even replace in-house data center capabilities with alternatives, and how to ensure a successful migration to a cloud-based solution.

For decades, data centers have been the literal and figurative hub of enterprise IT. But even as data centers have been modernized with denser infrastructure, smaller equipment, more efficient power and cooling, downsized physical space requirements and fewer personnel, organizations have sought alternatives.

In fact, data center traffic is growing far faster in cloud environments than it is in traditional on-premises data centers, due to the many benefits of the cloud architecture compared to on-premises data centers.1

The reasons why organizations want to transform — or even eliminate, in some cases — their corporate data centers are compelling.

• Capex costs. Even as hardware costs drop, building a data center is going to take millions of dollars. Even once the data center is operational, typical refresh cycles for servers, storage, networking and other data center equipment continues to carry a hefty price.

• Power and cooling costs. Data centers are huge consumers of power and cooling, even as data center infrastructure becomes more efficient. Power management systems have helped stem the tide of runaway electric costs to some degree, but it is inevitable that data center power and cooling costs will continue to rise each year.

• IT management requirements. As data centers host more equipment and are responsible for vital workloads, it puts greater demands on IT staff to monitor and manage data center infrastructure. IT personnel also have to handle such important but time-consuming manual data center tasks like security patching, backup and maintenance.

• IT responsiveness and agility. As data center sprawl threatens to choke many organizations, end users groups can become increasingly frustrated by the seeming inability of internal IT to keep up with the business requirements. That inevitably leads to the scenario described as “shadow IT,” when end users deploy their own technology solutions such as virtual machines, public cloud services, consumer devices and personal applications.

As new workloads and applications come online, and with the runaway growth of data volumes, traditional data centers are bursting at the seams. Some organizations have attempted to deal with this problem by adding satellite data centers in remote offices. But many other enterprises have decided to go another way — migrating applications, workloads and sometimes even entire data centers to a hybrid cloud environment.

INTRODUCTION

1. “The Fate of the Enterprise Data Center,” www.searchdatacenter.com, 2015

HOw TO MAkE THE MIgRATION TO THE CLOUD | 4

Moving workloads from on-premises data centers to the cloud is a trend that has been underway for the past several years. Initially, organizations tended to move workloads like VDI, test/development, archiving and email to the cloud, opting instead to leave Tier 1 workloads at local data centers.

That is quickly changing, however, as cloud service providers demonstrate their ability to deploy and deliver applications and services in a hybrid environment, leveraging the best of on-premises data centers and remote third-party facilities.

Migrating applications to the cloud from an on-premises data center is no small task. It requires extensive planning, meticulous project management and a keen understanding of each organization’s unique requirements — today and down the road.

There are several important steps organizations should be taking in order to facilitate the move from on-premises data centers to hybrid cloud environments.

• Have a plan. Many organizations decide to move to the cloud without a real strategy for what they want to do, why they want to do it and how they should measure success. This plan should account for such elements as applications and workloads, IT infrastructure, timeframes, partner evaluation criteria and management responsibilities.

• Make smart choices. Not every application or workload has to move to the cloud, nor do all applications or workloads than can be migrated have to move at the same time. Taking a staged approach is often a smart idea to ensure that workloads aren’t disrupted during or after the move. Identifying which applications and workloads should be moved first, which should be moved later and which ones shouldn’t be moved at all requires a thoughtful analysis of business and technical issues.

• Follow the money. Some on-premises costs are growing each year, such as power consumption, data storage, network bandwidth, compliance assurance and security. Outsourced or managed data centers with reputable third parties can help organizations reduce Capex in favor of predictable monthly fees, or “IT-by-the-drink” consumption models. Just how aggressively an organization should move infrastructure or workloads to the cloud depends, to a significant degree, on analyzing the economic savings of a hybrid cloud model compared with continued expansion of on-premises or remote data centers.

• Put together a “move group.” A move group is a collection of individuals representing IT and business stakeholders, who collectively determine which applications and workloads would benefit from a move to the cloud. Many organizations make the mistake of punting this responsibility over to the IT group, which is forced to make difficult decisions on the business impact of such a move without suitable input from business units.

• Are you compatible? Just because you want to migrate an application or workload to a hybrid cloud environ-ment doesn’t mean it will run at optimal performance — or at all — in the new environment. Be sure to leave time in the process for compatibility testing. After all, moving applications from an on-premises data center ar-chitected 20 years ago may not work the same in a facility built around infrastructure concepts such as blade servers, all-flash arrays, 100-gigabit Ethernet switches and software-defined data centers.

HOW TO MAKE THE MIGRATION TO THE CLOUD

HOw TO MAkE THE MIgRATION TO THE CLOUD | 5

• Play in the sandbox. All IT professionals are familiar with the sandbox concept, where individual workloads or applications are operated in a staging environment to test how a cloud environment affects key applications requirements such as availability, performance, latency, security and scalability. The sandbox technique is a great way to ensure that a full-scale migration can take place smoothly and reliably, without unnecessarily affecting production systems that can’t afford even short downtime periods.

• Partner up. As promising as migrating to the cloud is for many organizations, it is something most internal IT organizations have little experience with. Few organizations want to build and manage their own on-premises private clouds, and fewer still want to fully shutter their legacy data centers. That means finding a suitable partner — or partners — to help plan, deploy and run hybrid cloud solutions that preserve the best of traditional data centers while leveraging the benefits of cloud infrastructure and services. Be sure to take your time, do your homework on potential suppliers, check reference accounts, go to potential partners’ facilities and poke around. Remember that this is a highly considered, extremely strategic decision. Don’t rush it.

USINg EqUINIx AND DIMENSION DATA TO EMpOwER YOUR ENTERpRISE | 6

Transforming the data center takes more than just deciding to adopt a new enterprise computing model. It requires finding partners with deep knowledge of every aspect of data centers, from infrastructure design and application deployment to security frameworks, disaster recovery and distributed architectures such as private and hybrid clouds.

Many organizations have elected to work with an experienced team of data center experts: Equinix for its global data center presence and expertise, and Dimension Data for its ability to plan and deploy data center solutions in the cloud.

As organizations increasingly look to develop, deploy and deliver applications and infrastructure in the cloud, the Equinix-Dimension Data team provides numerous benefits. These include:

• Equinix’s global footprint of more than 145 data centers in 40 business metro regions across 21 countries.

• Equinix’s multi-cloud access via its Cloud Exchange™ platform.

• Dimension Data’s expertise in a broad range of strategic data center and cloud computing platforms, including Microsoft Azure, EMC, Cisco, Citrix, NetApp and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

• Dimension Data’s track record in planning, implementing and supporting cloud solutions across a variety of industries, leveraging the company’s knowledge of market-specific regulations, business processes and customer expectations.

Equinix enables enterprises’ movements away from an on-premises data center orientation toward the cloud by leveraging its 100-plus data centers located in 40 different metropolitan areas. Combined with Equinix’s rich ecosystem of partners and providers, the Equinix data center resources improve quality of experience for enterprises by decreasing latency and improving application performance — all while helping to manage costs.

Equinix’s Performance Hub™ is a solutions framework that acts as the backbone for hybrid cloud solutions to connect enterprises to service providers. It acts as a seamless extension of an organization’s on-premises data center and enterprise network, providing secure and reliable connectivity and risk mitigation.

Dimension Data has extensive experience in helping organizations achieve greater velocity for numerous business functions, while augmenting often-limited in-house IT skills. The company’s extensive IT skill sets span from consulting and application development to infrastructure management, technology refresh, data center operations optimization, security and compliance.

Together, Equinix and Dimension Data enable a full spectrum of data center solutions that can be delivered in the most customer-appropriate manner — from on-premises cloud solutions to a fully outsourced environment.

USING EQUINIX AND DIMENSION DATA TO EMPOWER YOUR ENTERPRISE

SUMMARY | 7

With increasing frequency, enterprises are making strategic decisions on the fate of their data centers. In many cases, the key question they are asking isn’t whether to move away from their traditional on-premises data center focus, but rather, how to make that transition.

De-emphasizing — or even eliminating — on-premises data centers is a highly strategic decision requiring organizations to seek out experienced, reputable partners that can help make the transition as seamless as possible. By combining the global data center presence and skills of Equinix with the extensive cloud computing consulting, deployment and management skills of Dimension Data, organizations can maintain the capabilities of data center infrastructure and services without the heavy investment in cost and IT staff resources normally associated with data centers.

For more information about how Equinix and Dimension Data can help your organization transform its data center, please go to:

Equinix.com

Equinix.com/partners/resellers/dimension-data/

About Dimension DataDimension Data uses the power of technology to help organizations achieve great things in the digital era. As a member of the NTT Group, we accelerate our clients’ ambitions through digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud, workspaces for tomorrow and cybersecurity. With a turnover of USD 7.5 billion, offices in 58 countries and 31,000 employees, we deliver wherever our clients are, at every stage of their technology journey.

We’re proud to be the Official Technology Partner of Amaury Sport Organisation, organizer of the Tour de France, and the title partner of the cycling team, Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka. Go to dimensiondata.com for more information.

SUMMARY

Equinix, Inc. One Lagoon Drive Redwood City, CA 94065 USA Main: +1.650.598.6000 Email: info@equinix.com

Corporate HQ EMEA Asia-Pacific

Equinix (EMEA) BV 7th Floor Rembrandt Tower Amstelplein 1 1096 HA Amsterdam Netherlands Main: +31.20.754.0305 Email: info@eu.equinix.com

Equinix Hong Kong Limited Units 6501-04A & 6507-08, 65/F International Commerce Centre 1 Austin Road West Kowloon, Hong Kong Main: +852.2970.7788 Email: info@ap.equinix.com

Equinix.com

About Equinix

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most interconnected data centers. In 40 markets across five continents, Equinix is where companies come together to realize new opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies.

In a digital economy where enterprise business models are increasingly interdependent, interconnection is essential to success. Equinix operates the only global interconnection platform, sparking new opportunities that are only possible when companies come together.

© 2016 Equinix, Inc.Equinix Dimension Data White Paper v0716 WP-EN JM-SG 0616Q116