Edge DCs like GPX are playing a crucial role in digital transformation of enterprises: Manoj Paul, MD, GPX India

Enterprises had embarked on their digital journey even before the onset of the global pandemic last year; and the COVID-19 situation only accelerated the pace of digital transformation.

The inter dependence of businesses has created a huge demand for interconnection between digital, hybrid and multi cloud operations. The first, and the foremost step towards this is to choose the right Edge Data Center with a dense interconnection ecosystem. Most enterprises are likely to be hybrid at the initial stage and not 100% on cloud. Thus, the access to different Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) along with a colocation environment providing 99.999% uptime becomes very important.

In a detailed interview with Express Computer, Manoj Paul, MD, GPX India, shares with us the increasing role of edge data centers in accelerating an organisation’s digital transformation, and the critical role of interconnection

Some edited excerpts:

What is the role of Edge Data Centers in providing the right platforms that corporate enterprises can use to accelerate their digital journey?
Edge Data Centers like GPX play a crucial role in the digital transformation of businesses. Enterprises hosted inside an Edge Data Center not only have the advantages of scalability and cost efficiency through easy access to multiple CSPs via a Cloud Exchange hosted inside the same data center, but also have access to various other multiple network connectivity providers including—Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Carriers, Content Distribution Network (CDNs), Software-Defined Network (SDNs), Internet Exchange Providers (IXPs), and other businesses and service providers like Banks and Stock Exchanges.

It thus creates a bedrock of the connectivity platforms that corporate enterprises can use to build their businesses across regions and leverage the cloud resources available in the region.

Going digital has made it possible for businesses to overcome geographical barriers to seamlessly provide a consistent and high quality experience to buyers across states and even countries. GPX’s Edge DCs offer an ideal ecosystem for colocation wherein a US based organisation can set up an Enterprise Edge PoP and connect to its customers in India via GPX’s carrier and cloud dense interconnection ecosystem for low latency connectivity. In India, the organisation can also offload its workloads on cloud by interconnecting with the choice of CSP at GPX and avoid carrying the traffic all the way to US to handover to same CSP there. This enables the enterprise to improve its service levels to its customers and save on network connectivity costs and complexity.

How does this digital infrastructure enable large and small businesses achieve the cost advantage?
Digitisation has brought about much transformation and business growth for service providers and retailers across sectors. This approach takes advantage of the fact that colocation facilities are ideal to house multiple customers. These customers can connect with each other over many different mediums including Ethernet to enable data exchange at extremely high speeds and at low cost without the latency of public networks or the cost of private leased lines from an on-premises data center. Accessing the cloud via dedicated connections within a colocation facility reduces bandwidth costs by 60% as compared to using the public Internet.

Another simple and easy way to start with the cloud option is to deploy Disaster Recovery on cloud which also provides huge cost savings. If colocated in an Edge Data Center like GPX, enterprises can connect to a CSP over a simple LAN cross connect and build their DR without having to buy DC-DR bandwidth from a telco. Since this is a connectivity over fiber, it can be scaled upto 100 Gbps when required and then scaled back down as easily. DR resources are not used often, and thus cloud DR solution becomes very cost effective.

Interconnection between businesses is extremely important in today’s world. Can you elaborate?
Interconnection which is often understood as an efficient approach towards connecting enterprises with CSPs, CDNs and Carriers, is also key for connecting various businesses which are interlinked.

Imagine you are browsing and come across an advertisement offering special discount on a gadget, and you click on the ad. You are redirected to the e-commerce platform where you select the product and a payment method. You are then redirected to the bank’s site where you complete the payment transaction. Immediately you are directed back to the e-commerce website where transaction status shows as completed along with delivery details and the order tracking option. Simultaneously, you receive transaction message from your bank, and a confirmation from the vendor about having received the order. All these processes take place on a real-time basis and amply display the interconnected nature of operations between the vendor, e-commerce website, and your bank. Delay in any leg or disruption can cause failure of the transaction. The customer may not try again leading to loss of business and poor customer experience. So, high quality interconnection between the various business entities involved in one transaction is critical to provide a smooth, free flowing and pleasant experience.

How can enterprises take advantage of Internet Exchanges?
Enterprises in India have not caught up with the idea of connecting to an Internet Exchange, which is quite common in US and Europe. Businesses have their end-users i.e. remote workforce, customers, vendors and partners located in different places, all connecting to the enterprises’ IT infrastructure at their data centers. In most cases, an Enterprise takes transit internet bandwidth from one or two Tier 1 Telcos/ ISPs (transit bandwidth provider) and all traffic flows through them. But it is not necessary that the end users are directly connected on same Telco/ ISP network. End users connect through multiple local ISPs/ mobile network and the data flows through these ISPs to the enterprise’s primary network and reaches its servers through multiple hops.

GPX provides a solution for this issue. Enterprises can connect to the five Internet Exchanges at the GPX DC campus, and thus get direct access to 170+ ISP’s. Thus, the traffic from users connected to all these ISPs can reach the enterprise IT infrastructure directly through the Internet Exchange (IX) avoiding a transit bandwidth provider and thus reducing hops which means better user experience. The enterprise can save costs by reducing requirement of transit bandwidth and replacing that with an IX port.

GPX hosts all major Internet Exchanges (IXes) in India; AMS-IX, Bharat IX, DE-CIX, Extreme IX and NIXI