Ams-ix case study

Industry:

Connectivity

Challenge:

Proactive partner for massivepeering interconnection growth

Solution:

Iron Mountain Data Centers

Value:

• Top-Tier reliability and infrastructure quality with the highest security standards
• Deep and diverse customer ecosystem with a leading market position
• Strategic locations in close proximity to additional ecosystems

Golden opportunityfor growth

AMS-IX has been operating at the core of the Internet successfully forover 25 years. It is a non-profit, member-based association and nowruns six interconnection platforms around the world: in Amsterdam,the Bay Area, the Caribbean, Chicago, Hong Kong and Mumbai. AMS-IXalso helps partners to set up internet exchanges of their own, like inManama, Bahrein.

The goal of AMS-IX is to interconnect an ecosystem which allows internetend-users to enjoy fast, stable, cost-effective online experiences.With their innovative platforms, cutting-edge technology and dedicatedengineers, they deliver high quality interconnection services to a widerange of businesses worldwide. These include internet service providers,mobile operators, content providers, hosting and cloud providers, TVbroadcasters, gaming companies and financial enterprises.

Operating across multiple data centers enhances in-built redundancyand makes for a highly reliable, low risk interconnection model which alsorelies partly on the size of the interconnected ecosystem. In Amsterdam,for instance, AMS-IX connects close to 900 parties and has a peak trafficof over 7 Terabits per second (Tbps), around 1 Tbps of which flows throughIron Mountain AMS-1.

AMS-IX first colocated with Iron Mountain in 2010 in Amsterdam. Security,uptime, extensive customer ecosystems and strategic location near tolarger ecosystems were the key driving factors. But the relationship soonwent deeper than this.

“In a few short years Iron Mountain and AMS-IX haveachieved great things together, not only in terms ofinterconnection growth, which has been impressive, butin building a deep and innovative relationship wherethe levels of trust are high enough for us to try out newtechnologies and solutions together.”

- Peter van Burgel, AMS-IX CEO

A PersuasiveProposition

“We have an exceptionally strongrelationship with Iron Mountain,” says Petervan Burgel, CEO of AMS-IX. “Iron MountainAMS-1 has been an AMS-IX Gold Partner for6 years in a row [i.e. they introduce morethan 20 new members or 100GE (GigabitEthernet) of new port capacity each year].Gold Partners are critical to our way ofdoing business – in essence we can’t doit alone. And a successful partnership isa two-way street – we have run eventstogether addressing the market and builta great joint proposition.”

As both AMS-IX and Iron Mountainexpand their portfolio and their globaldata center footprint, even moreopportunities are arising. To achievedigital transformation, enterprises needto diversify their connectivity, and in manycases, this means operating their ownnetwork (ASN) and connecting directly.For instance, if a business needs to processpayments efficiently and securely itneeds look no further than AMS-IX, whichhas pretty much every payment serviceprovider in the world on its platform.

AMS-IX now offers IX-as-a-Service (IXaaS)and Remote Peering (aka Easy Access),as well as a Service Hub, a partnermarketplace which can overlay serviceslike security or anti-DDOS solutions.The AMS-IX API now allows customersto automatically provision both AMS-IXservices and data center colocation.

“Iron Mountain and AMS-IX have a hugeshared opportunity to look forward to, andtrust is at its heart,” says van Burgel. “LikeIron Mountain, we pride ourselves on beingtrustworthy and our technical platform isall about trust and reliability. It’s a verystrong proposition in a fast-changing world,and we look forward to building on ourwinning partnership to gain traction withIron Mountain round the world.”