Tiered Pricing Ahead for Equinix

There will be very little "Equinization" of Switch and Data's facilities, but we're likely to see tiered pricing in some segments of the 87 data centers now operated by Equinix. That was the lowdown from Equinix executives last week as they discussed the closing of the company's acquisition of Switch and Data.

Equinization is an industry term for the infrastructure upgrades implemented by Equinix in data centers it has acquired, which often fall short of the redundancy seen in Equinix-built facilities.

With one deal, Equinix has expanded its portfolio by 34 data centers in 22 markets in the U.S. and Canada. These former Switch and Data facilities have already been rebranded under the Equinix logo, but there apparently will be no massive capital spending to overhaul the new additions.

"In terms of Equinizing these assets, there will be some minimal investment," said chief development office Mark Adams. "A lot of that's still in front of us."

That's not to say that that there will be no differentiation between the two companies' data centers. Equinix (EQIX) said last week that it expects to implement tiered pricing that acknowledges the broader range of facilities and markets the company now serves.

"There will be different tiers of offerings for our IBXes," said Jarrett Appleby, the chief marketing officer of Equinix, using the company's nomenclature for its data centers. IBX is short for International Business Exchange. Appleby didn't itemize how tiered pricing might work, saying that is still being worked out.

But when it comes to reliability, he said not many changes are needed in the Switch and Data facilities. "We're getting 5 nines (99.999 percent uptime) out of these sites," Appleby said. "So from a performance standpoint, they're already there."