Page 2 of 2Equinix currently has an alliance with Du that sees it operating differently to how it would in other countries due to the nature of the Middle East market. The company?s biggest commercial challenge in the UAE is that there is a a large number of enterprises there. "As the Internet in the UAE gets fed out of Europe to a large degree and for video and websites that?s ok but if you?re running your business on things that rely on the fibre links between Africa and Europe you have to know those fibres had cut we got protection so its only recently cloud providers," says Eric.
"People start pulling infrastructure in the Middle East largely in Dubai so that risk goes away, as that happens I think you will see a lot more adoption in the UAE and around the Gulf so we on the one hand have to be very effective, we are working with customers to explain to them what the infrastructure looks like on the other hand we are trying to work with their service providers to say you can be a much better provider if you?re local."
Equinix is currrently in the process of expanding and is now in the third phase of its Dubai facility. "We?ve expanded now we?re expanding again. We entered Dubai four years ago and because the telecommunications industry is not deregulated as it is in other markets our first step is working with local carriers who use the submarine cables that go past the UAE to connect into the site. So our site in Dubai is now by our metrics the most connected site in the UAE."
Explaining part of the reason this is, Schwartz said, "First of all we rely on our suppliers but we have our own technical engineering team in the UAE and most sites ? Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Those are Equinix people who are trained so they are there to make sure the facility keeps operating no matter what ? so keep the power on, keep the cooling running."
Equinix has more than 175 data centres in 44 markets, enabling more than 230,00 conenctions between its customers.
http://www.equinix.co.uk/
Equinix extends data centre services in MENA region
Eric Schwartz, President EMEA at Equinix. (Photo: Equinix)
