2018 CRN Impact Awards: Comlinx and NextDC

When fast-growing co-location provider NextDC struck its first profit in the 2016 financial year, it was already in the process of expanding its footprint of five data centres.

With the company's second-generation sites in Brisbane (B2) and Melbourne (M2) going live late in 2017, and Sydney’s S2 due soon, extra capacity could not come quick enough.

The company approached Comlinx, a long-time partner and Juniper Networks specialist, which has extensive experience in creative optical networks for enterprise and government clients.

Together, they developed an interconnect service that combines the ecosystem of clouds, networks and service providers in the paired facilities, allowing partners to expand their IT footprint in the same metro area, and have their data available in as a standard internal core-connect.

B2 and M2 are NextDC’s most advanced facilities, but each have their own unique network engineering requirements. B2 is an inner-city retro-fit, while M2 is a greenfield development on the city edge. 

Comlinx worked with Juniper’s technical product team and senior leadership to develop a DCI operations console, using the networking vendor’s API environment to align with the automation and networking processor already operating in NextDC’s facilities.

Using NextDC’s Axon ethernet connectivity platform, the console stores and controls device information and allows the co-location provider's staff to overview DCI connection status, view service parameters on one screen, rapidly provision and unprovision DCI services and more.

The DCI service provides NextDC’s customer greater expansion options and interconnectivity at the price of a standard internal cross-connect.

The DCI service also supports NextDC’s channel strategy, offering many of its partners an extra solution to onsell to their customers who want to span two facilities in one city or enjoy certain services not housed in the same facility they are.

NextDC said its long-term partnership with Comlinx made the collaboration a seamless, and time-efficient project, that has delivered real value to its partners.

“The guys from NexttDC made sure we had connectivity when we moved in, and this allowed us to manage connectivity to other sites using software,” said CT4 technology manager Wayne Moore, a NextDC customer.

“Using these types of SDN allows us to quickly connect to other sites, to migrate connections and change speeds on the fly, without having to wait forever for traditional carriers to build an inflexible service that is locked into a three-year contract.”

NextDC is a finalist in the 'Working Together' category in the 2018 CRN Impact Awards. For a list of all finalists and further details on the awards, please head to the CRN Impact Awards hub. The awards take place during the CRN Pipeline conference. You can get more information and purchase tickets here.