Data Center Links: Equinix, PEER 1, Tier 3, IceWeb

Here’s our review of some of this week’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Equinix selected by ChinaNetCenter. Equinix (EQIX) announced that ChinaNetCenter, a CDN services provider in China, has joined Platform Equinix to expand its service delivery into the United States. The company deployed a content delivery network (CDN) node in Equinix’s Los Angeles data center, LA1, to serve as a hub from which it can provide its CDN and Internet data center (IDC) services. “To remain a CDN and IDC leader in China, it’s critical for ChinaNetCenter to utilize high-quality data center resources so that we can better serve our customers worldwide," said David Liu, vice president, ChinaNetCenter. "By choosing to work with Equinix, we now have the agility we need to meet growing customer demands. Equinix provides consistent, reliable and extensible service to us, which is fundamental to our business development.”

PEER 1 and Tier 3 bring Enterprise cloud to Canada.  PEER 1 Hosting and enterprise cloud platform company Tier 3 announced that its VMware-based, enterprise-grade cloud platform is now available in Canada. Businesses can now deploy applications on secure, enterprise cloud services in nodes located in Toronto today and Vancouver early next year. The joint offering addresses the enterprise cloud requirement for “data sovereignty” – ensuring that data is stored and managed according to Canadian rules and regulations. “PEER 1 Hosting and Tier 3 operate as very successful providers on their own, making it a mutually beneficial relationship," said Carl Brooks, infrastructure services analyst at 451 Group. "The move into North America further validates their partnership: Tier 3 gets access to PEER 1 Hosting’s international audience and established hosting expertise, while PEER 1 gets a top-of-the-line IaaS service offering for its customers. The result is a compelling enterprise-grade cloud for end users that the company can expand swiftly to meet demand.”

IceWEB launches cloud services unit. IceWEB (IWEB), a provider of Unified Data Storage appliances for cloud and virtual environments, announced the launch of its IceWEB Cloud Services Unit, providing secure, infinitely expandable, ubiquitous cloud capabilities to its Unified Storage customers.  IceWEB CEO Rob Howe also hinted at a future content delivery network (CDN) service, for companies that must maintain their data 'everywhere at once', and who have been using overpriced solutions previously.  “We are seeing more and more that the cloud as a local service in government, education, healthcare and corporate entities is rocketing to the front of required services," said Howe. "Using a 'public' cloud has caused great harm to many organizations as they see their precious data assets leaving the enterprise. Those entities now urgently need to offer their own cloud services on their own campus or premise, and they will now be able to do that with IceWEB. We will launch our IceFOLDER mobile client software, enabling business associates, students, faculty, customers or constituents to manage their own personal folder in the business or campus cloud from any device—a smartphone, tablet, notebook, whatever, while securing that data according to the controls required by the enterprise on IceWEB appliances running in their on-premise cloud.”