Equinix Cloud Exchange Signs Blue Box Private Cloud as a Service

OpenStack-based private cloud services provider Blue Box is the latest cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider to sign onto Equinix Cloud Exchange, the colocation and data center services company’s growing network of cloud interconnect solutions.

Seattle-based Blue Box, which delivers cloud resources to customers worldwide, joins such IaaS providers as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (MSFT), both of which had interconnect partnerships with Equinix (EQIX) prior to the launch of Cloud Exchange.

With the new partnership, Equinix is providing a direct connection for customers from its data centers to Blue Box Private Cloud as a Service (PCaaS), a managed private cloud service built on OpenStack. According to Blue Box, the private cloud service was designed to ensure customers of both performance and security while also meeting strict data sovereignty requirements.

“Partnering with Equinix on the Cloud Exchange lets us provide customers a seamless move to Blue Box Cloud’s PCaaS infrastructure with fast interconnects to their existing Equinix assets and other major public clouds,” said Ken Cavallon, vice president of Partners at Blue Box, in a prepared statement.

For Equinix and Blue Box, this is an expansion of an existing relationship. Blue Box has been an Equinix customer since 2013, when it started occupying part of the Equinix Seattle SE3 data center. It has since expanded its presence to Equinix’s Zurich ZH4 data center.

Through Cloud Exchange, Blue Box customers initially will be able to access the interconnection service from the Seattle data center, but Equinix noted that the wheels are in motion to make the service available to Blue Box customers via the Zurich data center in the future.

“By joining the Equinix Cloud Exchange, Blue Box is able to solve the business challenges of enterprise customers that want fully managed resources as part of a hybrid cloud solution—with the ability to interconnect to multiple cloud providers,” said Jim Poole, vice president of Global Service Providers at Equinix, in a prepared statement. “Increasingly, cloud providers, such as Blue Box, are recognizing the many benefits associated with Cloud Exchange, including high-performance, security, reliability and access to an expanding ecosystem of network service providers and enterprises.”