CloudSigma Changes Data Center Strategy, Moves Into Three New U.S. Locations
Switches from focus on few locations in major hubs to more data centers in local markets.
August 18, 2014
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Public cloud provider CloudSigma is expanding into California, Florida and Hawaii data centers. The company is tapping Equinix's SV5 facility in Silicon Valley (San Jose) and MI3 in Boca Raton. In Hawaii it is using DRFortress as the provider. San Jose and Miami are typical deals, but the Hawaii deal is different: DRFortress is selling CloudSigma's public cloud services.
The company uses all-SSD storage for its cloud and touts flexibility in resource provisioning and private patching capabilities as major benefits. It recently added Live Snapshotting as well as expanded to an Equinix facility in Ashburn, Virginia, its second U.S. location. Its first in the country was Switch's Las Vegas SuperNAP, after the company expanded internationally, beyond its first location in Equinix's Zurich data center. The company also recently expanded with Equinix in Osaka, Japan.
The original strategy was having fewer cloud data center locations concentrating around major hubs. “We moved from large hubs to a local model,” said CEO Robert Jenkins. Customers prefer having more location choices for public clouds, particularly when it comes to building hybrid infrastructure, he explained. They want public cloud in close proximity to their existing infrastructure.
DRFortress runs a former Equinix data center in Hawaii. The deal between the two companies there is more of a joint venture, Jenkins explained. “Hawaii, to be honest, [is] not a location we originally had on our roadmap. We had conversation with DRFortress. They have been using CloudStack by Citrix and for a number of reasons they wanted to step back from operating cloud themselves. They discovered CloudSigma and started using us.”
DRFortress will eventually migrate its cloud customers over to CloudSigma, which will let it focus on its core business as well as take the company out of competing with other potential cloud providers wishing to colocate.
“Some of the customers in the area are using direct connect to Amazon Web Services all the way to the mainland for security reasons," said Jenkins. "They're happy they can now have a public cloud based in the Hawaii market."
CloudSigma is also targeting other markets in the Pacific. "Places like Guam, Haiti are small in the scheme of things, but there’s absolutely no cloud services there. The local model is a good model."
The rationale behind Miami and San Jose is straightforward. “We chose Miami with an eye on Latin America,” said Jenkins. “We’re interested in bringing a location on the ground in that market eventually.” CloudSigma also has several customers in the southeastern U.S. that wanted lower latency. The company expanded into San Jose because customers want a west coast cloud, according to Jenkins.
CloudSigma has also joined Equinix’s Cloud Exchange, which allows Equinix customers to make fast, direct, hybrid connections to CloudSigma, while expanding the cloud provider's global reach.
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