The network connections between data centres have always had to be big. Really big. First, it was because enterprises were backing up their systems and data to remote facilities to ensure continuity in the event of a local technology fault. Then, the cloud was born and even those big pipes between data centres started to come under pressure.

It wasn’t an overnight change, of course. Cloud connectivity, like cloud applications, started out small – mainly because it was a new, unproven way of working. Over time, though, the cloud has demonstrated that all kinds of applications can be delivered reliably from remote, virtualised infrastructure –  from non-critical use cases, to core enterprise systems that are too important to fail.

Today, a number of leading cloud providers are able to satisfy the end-to-end data-protection requirements of the most security conscious organisations and regulators. These include the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has approved certain security hardened cloud environments to support even the most mission-critical financial transactions and use cases.

Organisations now use an average of six cloud providers each and move workloads frequently between them to achieve the ideal balance of performance, flexibility and cost-efficiency. This creates a complex array of data centre connectivity requirements, with optical, Ethernet and IP transport needed between data centres to support specific cloud connections and services.

The challenges of data centre connectivity in the cloud era

With a vast spectrum of IT infrastructure and services now hosted in the cloud, traffic between data centres is exploding. Specifically, the industry expects to see a 10x increase in network traffic by 2025, with a 27.5% CAGR growth in company’s overall cloud spend. This means that data flowing between data centres will continue to surge, requiring far more scalable network connections.

As an additional challenge, organisations now use an average of six cloud providers each and move workloads frequently between them to achieve the ideal balance of performance, flexibility and cost-efficiency. This creates a complex array of data centre connectivity requirements, with optical, Ethernet and IP transport needed between data centres to support specific cloud connections and services.

Help your customers get their DCI connectivity right

With deep knowledge of your customers’ data centre environment and cloud connectivity requirements, your organisation is ideally placed to support their IT transformation agenda, and to take an active role in any DCI upgrades they need. But with specialist skills and technologies needed to build future-ready DCI solutions for your customers, your choice of DCI partner is critical to the success of any such project.

To empower your business to deliver the industry’s leading DCI solutions, Ciena has joined forces with Westcon. Ciena is the recognised industry leader in the global DCI equipment market according to leading industry analysts, including Ovum, IHS Markit and Dell’Oro. At the same time, Westcon has 30+ years of experience delivering unrivalled logistics, engineering, deployment and support services – alongside all the other professional services needed to deploy reliable, scalable DCI networks for your customers.

The benefits of Ciena and Westcon DCI solutions for your customers

Ciena and Westcon DCI solutions help your customers deploy the high-speed data centre connections they need to support their IT and cloud strategies, both now and in the future. Many customers will also be able to consolidate multiple data centre links and traffic types onto a single, converged connection, helping them achieve major OPEX savings.

Customers who deploy DCI solutions from Ciena and Westcon can also integrate with the full range of data centre applications quickly and easily via APIs, from cloud development services to disaster recovery and business continuity systems. They also get end-to-end, optical-layer encryption to protect their mission-critical data, minimising the risk of security breaches and related regulatory fines or reputational damage.

Why DCI means major new opportunities for your business

By offering Ciena and Westcon’s industry leading DCI solutions to your customers, you can access a range of new commercial opportunities. Based on your strong relationships with enterprise customers, and your familiarity with their data centre environments, you are ideally positioned to deliver the new, high-speed, always-on data centre networks they need. Choose to partner with us and the whole thing becomes easy, helping you accelerate your sales cycle and time to revenues for DCI projects.