Equinix Expands Internet Exchange Ecosystem in South Korea to Accelerate Businesses’ Digitalization

Equinix Enables KINX and KRIX Internet Exchange and Network Services in SL1 Data Center

Equinix, Inc. , the world’s digital infrastructure company™, announced that customers in Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX^®) SL1 are able to connect with the Internet Exchange (IX) and network services of Korea Internet Neutral Exchange (KINX) and Sejong Telecom’s Korea Internet Exchange (KRIX). Internet Exchanges are the crucial locations where content and access networks meet and internet bandwidth is produced, enabling effective internet traffic exchange.

According to the Global Interconnection Index (GXI) 2023, a market study recently announced by Equinix, Seoul’s interconnection bandwidth is forecast to reach 189 terabits per second (Tbps) by 2025, representing a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47%, becoming the seventh largest metro in the Asia-Pacific region by 2025. The expanded IX ecosystem will provide optionality and meet the increasing digital infrastructure and IX demands from international and domestic businesses in SL1.

As it is possible to link to KINX and KRIX within SL1, Equinix customers can interconnect and peer with various internet service providers and content providers through their respective IXs. This will allow high-speed and low-latency traffic exchange, reducing packet loss, jitter, and out-of-order packet delivery. When customers route some of their traffic off the internet and connect directly within the ecosystem of Equinix Internet Exchange™ service, they can enjoy network reliability, reduced network traffic latency, improved performance and reduced cost for IP transit.`

Packet Clearing House (PCH) is among the first IX participants in Equinix’s facility in Seoul to take advantage of these benefits. Being able to connect to all of Korea’s major IX points in a single location allows PCH to build digital infrastructure more efficiently and economically, and to manage it with the convenience of a single point of contact facilitating its presence in dozens of Equinix facilities around the world, including Amsterdam, Ashburn, Chicago, Dallas, Geneva, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Miami, New York, Osaka, Palo Alto, Paris, Perth, San Jose, Seattle, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, Warsaw and Zurich. Equinix’s carrier-neutral and open interconnection capability aligns with PCH’s open peering policies leading to rapid growth of new interconnection in each of its facilities.

“South Korea is known for having one of the fastest Internet networks around the world. We have high internet penetration with 93% of Koreans using the Internet, leading to demands for ever-increasing levels of network performance and capacity,” said Chris Jang, Managing Director at Equinix Korea. “The collaboration with domestic IXs including KINX and KRIX will offer more choices and enhance network services for our customers, including PCH, to accelerate businesses’ digitalization. We will look forward to welcoming more IXs to our ecosystem and peer at SL1.”

Highlights/Key Facts

• Equinix SL1 is a carrier-neutral data center offering a wide array of interconnection and digital services, including Equinix Internet Exchange, Equinix Fabric^® and Equinix Metal™. The facility is designed to help accelerate digital transformation and hybrid multicloud migration for local and global businesses.

• With the expanded IX ecosystem, SL1 customers can enjoy benefits of:

o    Optionality: Aggregate traffic to multiple peers on one physical port, handle multiple small peers while moving high-traffic peers to private interconnects.

o    Performance: Reduce network hops and congestion for end users of your content and applications.

o    Control: Create and manage your connections, on demand, through a globally consistent portal.

o    Reduce costs: Aggregate thousands of peering sessions onto a single hardware platform, the largest IX with the most peers, markets and traffic, further reducing the need for IP transit.

o    Rich ecosystem: Discover and connect to thousands of networks, large enterprises, and cloud and IT service providers.

o    Greater visibility: View detailed reports and monitor network performance across peering locations.

• As a global not-for-profit organization responsible for supporting the core of the domain name system (DNS), PCH is making hundreds of national top-level domains available in SL1, as well as facilitating the participation of two DNS root servers, D-root and E-root (operated by University of Maryland and NASA respectively) in Korea. While DNS traffic has a small footprint, every online transaction requires the DNS to navigate the Internet’s topology in order to transmit data. Equinix works with PCH to ensure that high-performance DNS server clusters are distributed to IX points globally, and this collaboration has resulted in a remarkable 100% uptime since the partnership began in 1998.

• Equinix operates the world’s largest IX footprint, with the most peers, in the most markets, passing the most traffic. Delivered on a globally available IX architecture across more than 30 markets on Platform Equinix^®, Equinix Internet Exchange aggregates thousands of peering sessions, lowers costs and enhances network control, performance, speed, and reliability.