Equinix has announced Equinix Data Hub, a bundled solution which should allow organizations to distribute data handling to the edge of the network.

Data Hub combines pre-configured colocation and power with cloud-integrated data storage, so enterprises can build data repositories which dispense, consume and process the data cose to its source and close to users. It is based on configurations developed working with large public clouds, and brings them to more general users, as part of Equinix’s Interconnection Oriented Architecture marketing program.

hub spoke edge cartwheel thinkstock photos cswart
– Thinsktock / cswart

An edgy package

With the growth in local data brought about by the Internet of Things (IoT), firms are demanding more capacity at the “edge” of the network, as it is not practical to move all this new data to central processing facilities quickly and cheaply.

Equinix says this means they need in interconnection oriented architecture with capacity at the edge. Its Data Hub works with its existing Performance Hub and Cloud Exchange. While Performance Hub solves for the deployment of network gear and interconnection inside Equinix data centers, Data Hub enables the deployment of IT gear integrated with Performance Hub, says the colocation provider.

The Data Hub performs data ingestion and analytics while securely connected over redundant, high-speed links to the Performance Hub, which connects to public and private clouds. 

It is intended for cloud-integrated tiered storage, storing tiers of data and metadata close to their sources, and minimizing slow transfers to distant data repositories. It also allows local processing clusters for big data, and is apparently in use at customers including large retailers. 

It also allows data to be replicated across sites for resilience. 

Although Equinix prefers its own Cloud Exchange, it says the Data Hub is cloud agnostic, so customers can plumb all sorts of data together and create a “data lake”, accessible from multiple public and private cloud services. 

Equinix backed up the launch with lots of marketing collateral, including a blog post, an infographic and an  Equinix-sponsored white paper produced by IDC.