EdgeConneX® has announced that it has entered into an agreement to facilitate the availability of direct cloud connectivity to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform within its Boston Edge Data Center® via the deployment of Megaport's SDN-based elastic interconnection fabric. With this new offering, Datapipe and Comcast Business will offer localized cloud migration services to ease enterprise adoption and simplify network connectivity to the cloud.

Datapipe, a leading global managed hosting and cloud services provider, will offer Boston-based cloud integration services, facilitating and managing local enterprises through the appropriate migration to public and hybrid solutions. Comcast Business, which offers Ethernet, Internet, Wi-Fi, Voice, TV and Managed Enterprise Solutions to help organizations of all sizes transform their business, is offering its direct and private Ethernet services to the EdgeConneX Boston Edge Data Center (EDC) and will be training its vast sales team to speed enterprise adoption of hybrid cloud services. Megaport, the pioneer in elastic bandwidth services, will provide its elastic interconnection platform, which enables on-demand, highly reliable, scalable and private direct connections to leading Cloud Service Providers. As a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute connectivity partner, Amazon AWS Direct Connect partner and Google Cloud Platform Carrier Interconnect partner, Megaport makes it simple to directly connect to cloud services with right-sized capacity.

This collective partnership results in the availability of a cloud ecosystem that makes Boston one of the most effectively and efficiently connected markets in the world for handling the complex needs of IT organizations as they continue to advance their use of the cloud and take advantage of its many benefits. Previously, cloud connectivity investments of this magnitude were only found in a few global core markets leaving the majority of enterprises outside of those geographies without an ideal solution.

"It's amazing that a top-five enterprise market relies on services hundreds of miles away for critical IT infrastructure," remarks Clint Heiden, chief commercial officer, EdgeConneX. "Effective cloud solutions, and thus adoption by enterprises, depends on reliable, fast and secure connectivity. Furthermore, an effective hybrid implementation is still one that is local to the customer. Boston marks our third roll out of local cloud services, following the May and June announcements of Portland and Detroit, respectively. We plan to continue rolling out these services across our entire global EDC footprint."

The Internet of Everywhere requires a highly diverse and distributed content and cloud architecture, with the network Edge extended beyond traditional major peering hubs to ensure the service quality and experience expected by today's enterprises and consumers. According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index (GCI): Forecast and Methodology, 2014-2019 White Paper, network latency is a critical factor in cloud adoption and limits the use of advanced services in the cloud. "Reducing delay in delivering packets to and from the cloud is crucial to delivering today's advanced services and ensuring a high-quality end-user experience," the GCI stated.

"Boston enterprise growth is on the rise with the city's high-tech sector growing nine percent every year since 2010," comments Robb Allen, CEO, Datapipe. "EdgeConneX has built a compelling multi-cloud ecosystem around their data center facilities to meet this increase in demand. Datapipe's experience in migrating, optimizing and managing IT infrastructure can help enterprises take full advantage of this ecosystem."

The EdgeConneX Boston EDC is optimized to offer security, speed and performance improvements. These innovations enable customers to deliver digital content, cloud and applications to end-users as fast as possible. Edge Data Centers are proximity-based, strategically located nearest to the end-user's point of access to reduce network latency and optimize performance. Local proximity access also brings the cloud closer to the enterprise, enabling more secure, real-time access to cloud applications and services while offering reduced backbone transport costs.

"Until recently, cloud services were consumed on-demand while connectivity to those cloud services remained static and fixed," explains Denver Maddux, CEO, Megaport. "Megaport enables enterprises to deploy on-demand capacity that is right-sized and reliable. We're excited to support this initiative to enable Boston businesses with a powerful set of tools to unlock next-generation cloud architectures."

"Our extensive Boston network has direct on-net access to thousands of enterprises," states Steve Walsh, vice president for Comcast Business in Greater Boston. "This broad reach allows us to offer reliable Ethernet services that can meet virtually any business demand. Having a local cloud offering in Boston adds a tremendous solution for us to bring to our customers and further highlights how Comcast Business is keeping pace with the growth needs of the market."