DE-CIX Frankfurt expands internet exchange infrastructure to support demands of European digital economy

DE-CIX Frankfurt, the world’s largest internet exchange, has announced a major technology infrastructure upgrade, designed to support the launch of its newest interconnection platform, DE-CIX Apollon. The development of an entirely new and state-of-the-art platform in TelecityGroup’s Gutleutstrasse facility in Frankfurt has enabled DE-CIX’s backbone to gain the capacity needed to support the continued development of the German and wider European digital economy, and meet future internet bandwidth requirements.

As a key international Internet Exchange Point (IXP), DE-CIX forms an essential part of the global internet infrastructure, providing a public junction point for carriers (telecoms networks service providers), ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and content providers of all types to exchange internet traf?c. The ongoing growth of the European internet economy has resulted in current peak traffic levels of more than 2.5 terabits per second through the DE-CIX public peering platform, compared to an average of less than 0.5 terabits in 2009 – growth of over 400 percent in just three years.

DE-CIX Apollon will provide the full spectrum of Ethernet-based interconnection services, including DE-CIX’s premium peering at access speeds from 1 Gigabit to multiple 100 Gigabit ports, depending on its clients’ requirements. This furthers the overall scalability of DE-CIX, on which traffic has grown at a rate of 50-100% per year for the last 10 years. To support this continued growth into the future, DE-CIX must ensure its new platform is located within easy reach of as many potential members as possible and is guaranteed the necessary power and data centre capacity required to fulfil both its own and its members’ current and future growth needs.

TelecityGroup has provided a bespoke solution for DE-CIX in its new and expanded Frankfurt facility, enabling the IXP to implement a new generation of switch and server infrastructure and to secure expansion capacity that it and its members can grow into. Both through its extensive 24x7 onsite support as well as the flexibility of the newly expanded data centre, TelecityGroup has enabled DE-CIX to seamlessly migrate its users from an existing platform within the Gutleutstrasse campus without negatively impacting end-user performance.

Harold Summa, CEO, DE-CIX comments: “To continue to support the incredible growth of the European digital economy, DE-CIX Apollon must be located in facilities which can provide the most highly-connected and state-of-the-art underlying infrastructure. At DE-CIX we have a long relationship with TelecityGroup and we are well aware of the company’s ability to deliver the most flexible and resilient environments. TelecityGroup’s expertise and responsiveness means we have been able to complete this significant upgrade without any disruption to our service.”

The presence of DE-CIX Apollon at TelecityGroup provides even wider international connectivity and peering options to TelecityGroup’s customers, providing opportunities to interconnect with over 500 carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other internet-related companies. Connecting into an IXP such as DE-CIX enables organisations to reduce their overall communications costs, while improving network performance and the quality of the customer experience.

Martin Essig, Managing Director, TelecityGroup Germany said “Whether our customers are internet start-ups, content companies, cloud computing providers, or other companies looking to expand into Europe, each has the ability to take advantage of the digital ecosystems which evolve, develop and exist in our data centre environments. DE-CIX’s decision to expand its infrastructure with TelecityGroup is another reflection of our attractiveness as a platform for highly connected customer ecosystems . The expanded DE-CIX presence will provide our customers with enriched connectivity options, and even more direct paths to their users.”

DE-CIX Apollon in Frankfurt is currently being deployed and will be ready for service in December 2013.