Amsterdam Internet Exchange Moves Into San Francisco Data Center

After establishing presence on the east coast, AMS-IX USA, subsidiary of AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange), is expanding to San Francisco.

The company has established a point of presence at Digital Realty Trust’s San Francisco data center at 365 Main Street. Called AMS-IX Bay Area, the peering exchange builds on progress made with AMS-IX in New York.

AMS-IX and a number of other European internet exchange operators, including LINX (London Internet Exchange) and DE-CIX (Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange) recently established presence in data centers in New York and Northern Virginia markets in parallel with establishment and development of Open-IX, a non-profit industry organization chartered with increasing the number of Internet exchange options in the U.S.

Open-IX has devised two sets of certification requirements for exchanges and data centers that host them. Digital’s 365 Main facility has been certified, and AMS-IX Bay Area is “compliant” with Open-IX standards, according to AMS-IX.

Together with Open-IX, European operators have brought what is often referred to as the European exchange model to the U.S. The European exchanges are member-governed and distributed, while the leading U.S. exchanges are inside a handful of commercial providers’ data centers, controlled by the providers, primarily Equinix.

Digital Realty takes part in the Open-IX effort, and so do its competitors, such as DuPont Fabros Technology, CyrusOne and RagingWire, all in hopes that hosting exchanges will make their facilities more attractive for customers.

“The expansion of the AMS-IX/Digital Realty relationship from New York to San Francisco further strengthens and expands Digital Realty’s commitment to the Open-IX initiative,” John Sarkis, general manager of colocation and connectivity at Digital, said. “We look forward to continuing to provide our clients with the widest possible range of connectivity options.”

On the east coast, AMS-IX has agreements with Digital Realty for a point of presence at Google-owned 111 8^th Avenue, with DuPont Fabros for infrastructure in its Piscataway, New Jersey, data center, with Sabey Data Centers for presence in its Intergate.Manhattan building and with owners of the 325 Hudson carrier hotel, also in Manhattan.

As of Tuesday evening, seven entities were connected to AMS-IX New York, driving peak traffic at 35.91 Mbps. Together with the exchange in Amsterdam, the organization has about 700 connected parties with peak traffic rate approaching 3 Tbps.