Hawaii — 20 January 2025 — Console Connect, PCCW Global’s on-demand platform and automated network for intelligent data movement, and Zenlayer, the world’s first hyperconnected cloud, have today announced a strategic collaboration that extends the reach of their respective global ecosystems via bilateral APIs.

It combines Console Connect’s robust carrier-grade network with Zenlayer’s expertise in edge computing and low-latency networking, creating a one-stop connectivity solution for customers.

Console Connect will extend its reach into high-growth emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and South America, offering its users greater global connectivity. Zenlayer customers will access an expanded network of cloud and data center locations in key developed markets with enhanced flexibility and choice for hybrid and multi-cloud networking while maintaining high performance, reliability, and security for their critical workloads.

The API integration will ensure that customers benefit from agile on-demand private connectivity that can be dynamically adjusted to meet the needs of their business, ensuring they only pay for the bandwidth they need to maximise agility and control.

“Zenlayer shares our vision of facilitating flexible and fast data movement for businesses worldwide. We are delighted to extend the reach of our automated network and connected ecosystem while helping Zenlayer customers reach further across the globe using a network they can trust,” says Michael Glynn, SVP of Digital Automated Innovation at Console Connect.

Zenlayer is a launch partner of the new Console Connect Marketplace, enabling users to order and provision Zenlayer compute services such as bare metal and virtual machines (VM) via the Console Connect platform, which features complementary IT and connectivity solutions from over 50 leading providers.

Along with extending Zenlayer’s cloud ecosystem to more key locations across Africa, Europe, and North America, the joint solution will allow Zenlayer’s customers to order and provision leading on-demand connectivity services from Console Connect, such as Layer 2 and Internet on-demand.

“The collaboration with Console Connect marks a significant milestone in our shared mission to provide high-performance connectivity on a global scale,” said Joe Zhu, founder and CEO of Zenlayer. “By enhancing each other’s platforms and expanding our global ecosystems, we are empowering businesses to succeed in an increasingly interconnected world.”

About PCCW Global

PCCW Global is a leading international communications service provider, offering the latest mobility, voice and data solutions to multinational enterprises, telecommunications partners, cloud and application service providers. With a network footprint reaching over 3,000 cities in 160+ countries across five continents, our truly global coverage combined with local on-the-ground knowledge has helped us build best-in-class global connections linking Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. Our network supports a portfolio of integrated communications services including connectivity, applications, and tailored solutions integrated and orchestrated by the Console Connect on-demand digital Software Defined Interconnection® platform, one of the first global platforms to fully automate switching and routing of all communications for seamless interconnection.

To learn more about PCCW Global, please visit www.pccwglobal.com.

About Console Connect

Console Connect is PCCW Global’s on-demand platform, API community and automated network for intelligent data movement. The platform helps businesses easily, quickly and securely connect and move their data between clouds, data centres, office locations, apps, devices and more, whenever and to wherever they need it most to add value.

For more information visit www.consoleconnect.com

About Zenlayer

Zenlayer is the world’s first hyperconnected cloud, operating more than 300 Points of Presence across 50 countries. Businesses utilize Zenlayer’s on-demand compute and networking services to deploy and run applications at the edge. Zenlayer enables organizations to instantly improve real-time digital experiences worldwide. Visit us online at www.zenlayer.com and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter: Zenlayer.

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on January 20, 2025.

Singapore, December 4, 2024 — Zenlayer, the world’s first hyperconnected cloud, and Global Switch, a leading carrier-neutral data center operator, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver advanced AI infrastructure in the Asia Pacific. This partnership enables companies to build and operate high-performance AI clusters while leveraging enhanced interconnectivity across Global Switch’s data centers in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The joint solution leverages both companies’ expertise in AI infrastructure and connectivity. Global Switch’s Hong Kong data center features state-of-the-art direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, tailored for high-density compute installations. Zenlayer’s high-bandwidth, ultra-low-latency fabric for AI provides seamless interconnectivity between Global Switch’s data centers, including key international routes such as Hong Kong to Singapore, as well as local interconnections between Hong Kong, Tai Seng, and Woodland data centers. This ensures fast and reliable data transfers for AI training and inferencing across the region.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in the demand for high-density racks in the past two years in Asia, and Hong Kong is a natural choice for us to showcase the latest in liquid cooling technology” said Ashley Muldoon, the Chief Executive Officer of Global Switch. “We are happy to join hands with Zenlayer to provide a turnkey infrastructure solution to power AI growth in the region”.

“We are excited to bring cutting-edge AI infrastructure solutions to the market in collaboration with Global Switch,” said Joe Zhu, Chief Executive Officer of Zenlayer. “By integrating our Fabric for AI, designed to seamlessly connect AI clusters across Asia, with Global Switch’s advanced data center technologies, we are delivering a comprehensive solution that streamlines AI deployment and enables AI companies to focus on what truly matters: groundbreaking innovations.”

Beyond its network capabilities, Zenlayer also provides managed AI data center services and on-demand GPU compute resources to accelerate AI workloads. With infrastructure optimized for AI interference workloads, Global Switch facilitates fast, seamless processing and real-time decision-making for AI applications throughout Asia Pacific. Contact the Zenlayer and Global Switch teams to learn more about the joint offerings.

About Zenlayer

Zenlayer is a leading global network and cloud services provider that enables businesses to connect, scale, and innovate worldwide. With a global network spanning over 200 cities in 60+ countries, Zenlayer offers a comprehensive suite of network and cloud services, including dedicated servers, colocation, cloud networking, and SD-WAN. For more information, please visit www.zenlayer.com

About Global Switch

Established in 1998, Global Switch has built a reputation for creating data centers that set new standards in scale, resilience and connectivity. Global Switch’s portfolio comprises eleven data centers owned by consolidated entities centrally located in Tier 1 cities across Europe and Asia Pacific, offering a total of 388,000 sq.m of world-class technical space with further developments underway. Our network is home to some of the most forward-thinking public and private organizations of all sizes, who rely on us to house their mission-critical IT infrastructure and connect them seamlessly to a diverse choice of telecoms, internet, and cloud providers. For more information about Global Switch, visit the website at www.globalswitch.com

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on December 4, 2024.

Hong Kong has long been an international finance hub and a commercial and cultural gateway to Greater China thanks to its strategic location and robust infrastructure developments. Offering a low risk of natural disasters and reliable access to power and water, the metropolitan city has seen a sharp rise in international investments as developing markets throughout Southeast Asia start to mature, creating lucrative opportunities backed by ever-strengthening consumer demand.

As one of the world’s freest economies-featuring free trade, a free market system, and the free flow of capital-Hong Kong received approximately $112.7 billion in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in 2023, maintaining the Special Administrative Region’s position as the fourth-largest recipient of FDI funds across the globe. In the same year, this geographically small city of just 428mi 2saw a record high of 4,257 startups, 26% of which were founded by non-locals.

These figures signal strong, sustaining global interest in Hong Kong’s unique opportunities.

Why Hong Kong?

With a population of 7.4 million, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region globally with a significant concentration of enterprises, networks, and IT and cloud service providers, offering a rich and diversely interwoven ecosystem for business and technology.

Earlier this year, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ranked Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou as the second biggest science and technology cluster worldwide for the fifth consecutive year. Last year, Cushman & Wakefield’s 23 Global Data Centre Market Comparison ranked Hong Kong as fourth overall, noting that it scored highly in connectivity, demand, service availability, and its business-friendly tax structure.

The city is home to 37 data center operators and 60 data centers strategically placed to offer businesses:

• Access to key Asian exchanges — Hong Kong’s location gives companies easy access to markets across the continent, creating opportunities for financial services, technology companies, and multinational businesses.
• Gateway to Greater China — the city’s geographic and economic proximity to the mainland makes it an ideal location to expand in and out of the country. Businesses can leverage Hong Kong’s infrastructure to navigate China’s complex regulatory landscape, ensuring secure, efficient cross-border connectivity.
• High network density — serving as one of Asia’s chief telecommunication hubs, the city hosts a great number of carriers, data centers, and network providers, offering extensive connectivity options.

With Zenlayer’s innovative digital infrastructure solutions and Equinix operating the leading regional exchange, we make expanding your business operations into Hong Kong and deploying applications and services a breeze.

Business challenges in Hong Kong

Despite Hong Kong’s numerous advantages for businesses looking to expand operations, grow users, and capture new revenue streams, deploying infrastructure in the city can be challenging due to several factors, including:

• Regulatory complexities — businesses handling sensitive data must comply with regulations that are difficult to navigate without local expertise, like China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), which outlines strict requirements for data protection, storage, and cross-border transfers.
• Unreliable cross-border connectivity — due to provider fragmentation, varying infrastructure standards, and aforementioned regulatory constraints, establishing secure, high-performance networking between Hong Kong and other global regions can prove challenging.
• Scalability and compatibility issues — as enterprise operations frequently require interconnecting systems and resources between clouds, data centers, and on-prem stacks, maintaining scalability while ensuring seamless integration between platforms can be tricky.
• Supply chain slowdowns — hardware shortages and logistical delays can impact deployment timelines, hindering business development and entry into fast-moving markets.

Streamline your infrastructure expansion with Zenlayer and Equinix

We join forces to help your business overcome Hong Kong’s unique challenges to streamline infrastructure deployment and accelerate market entry.

When you partner with Zenlayer and Equinix, you get the best of both worlds from our complementary service platforms, unlocking

With our nearly 200 edge nodes covering 99% of the internet population throughout the Asia-Pacific, we offer:

1. Global coverage with extensive presence in Asia
2. Competitive and flexible billing
3. Seamless, compliant cross-border connectivity in and out of China
4. A full suite of compute and networking services that include VMs, bare metal, IP transit, L2/L3 networking, and direct-cloud connectivity
5. A one-stop shop for all your infrastructure needs with rapid deployment capabilities

As the world’s digital infrastructure company, Equinix offers:

1. World-leading data center facilities
2. Carrier-dense network with a wide range of options for domestic and international connectivity
3. Cloud density and adjacency to major public cloud providers
4. Digital services including Equinix Fabric®, Equinix Network Edge, and more
5. Deep experience and established ecosystem for financial services and healthcare enterprises

Swiftly navigate Hong Kong’s regulatory complexities

As two leading infrastructure and connectivity solution providers in the region, Zenlayer and Equinix combine to give you nearly a century of experience in local compliance and regulations, empowering you to smoothy and swiftly navigate in and out of Asia’s key markets worry-free.

Equinix operates 268 data centers globally certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to facilitate data compliance anywhere you deploy. Zenlayer’s sizable presence with nearly 200 points of presence (PoPs) throughout the Asia-Pacific enables you to host critical data wherever you serve customers to comply with data localization initiatives.

When you partner with Zenlayer and Equinix, you consolidate all your critical network services down to a single contract with one point of contact, freeing up valuable time and energy while speeding up support resolution and compliant market entry.

Access high-performance, reliable cross-border connectivity

Leveraging Zenlayer’s 130+ Tbps, ultra-low latency network that covers 99% of the internet population in the Asia-Pacific, it’s easy to optimize and streamline connections to challenging nearby markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and China. Our network supports high concurrency, outperforming traditional single-layer networks to cut latency by up to 80% compared with public networks during peak hours.

Gain flexibility by taking advantage of our newly introduced port-based purchase model, which gives you the flexibility to start upgrading your network and building your ideal cloud environment with a single multi-purpose port.

Equinix hosts major marketplaces like the Chicago, London, and New York stock exchanges in its global data centers, and operates one of the most carrier-dense network hubs in Hong Kong, offering robust cross-border connectivity to major markets worldwide. The Equinix Internet Exchange (Equinix IX) lets network service providers, content providers, and enterprises connect their networks to exchange traffic directly without relying on public networks or any intermediaries.

Using our globally optimized network services, your business can quickly establish presence anywhere and create secondary sites via separate PoPs for service continuity and rapid disaster recovery.

Ensure easy scalability and integrations via a massive service ecosystem

Partnering with Zenlayer and Equinix lets you leverage our combined economies of scale and rich network of integrated service partners to minimize compatibility issues and ensure consistent service not just in Hong Kong, but across the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

You can leverage Zenlayer’s 300+ direct connections to the world’s top clouds and Equinix’s extensively interconnected IBX data centers to rapidly connect global resources, standardize infrastructure management, and build cloud environments. Our high-quality local IP transit and partnerships with 10,000+ ISP, telecom carrier, and internet exchange peers help you effortlessly create your ideal high-performance enterprise network.

We also offer a suite of data center services accessible through our 300+ global PoPs that include managed hosting, custom colocation, and consultancy on site selection, customs clearance, deployment and configuration, equipment and network monitoring, and more.

Overcome supply chain slowdowns to rapidly deploy anywhere

Hardware delays can hinder expansion and restrict valuable opportunities in a fast-moving market like Hong Kong. You can mitigate supply chain slowdowns by using Zenlayer and Equinix’s digital infrastructure services to rapidly deploy worldwide, reduce reliance on physical hardware, and better align costs by turning your CapEx into OpEx.

By eliminating physical infrastructure deployment, which usually takes three to six months, you can instantly access high-performance bare metal, VMs, and edge GPUs to deploy closer to users, drastically cutting latency and optimizing data processing for improved performance, accelerated resource access, and seamless digital experiences.

Customer success in Japan with Zenlayer

Gaming industry leader optimizes large-volume data migration

A fast-growing gaming industry leader in the Asia-Pacific with a revenue of $32.8 billion in 2021 and 4,000+ employees worldwide relied on hybrid cloud deployments to handle surging demand but faced complex cross-cloud migration challenges like limited access to data center resources without proper authorization, lengthy approval processes for resource adjustments, and inefficient, time-consuming self-maintenance.

To help optimize data transfers, we designed a lightweight migration pipeline leveraging our hyperconnected private backbone, enabling the gaming company to make quick and flexible resource adjustments. Our solution simplifies deployment via Letter of Authorization (LOA) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) configurations eliminating the need for the customer to interface directly with the data center, giving them greater agility to scale on demand.

Crytocurrency platform accelerates data synchronization

A top cryptocurrency platform faced high latency across its multi-cloud infrastructure, leading to delays in transaction processing and poor user experience. As their operations span numerous global regions, the company needed a way to reduce inter-cloud latency while maintaining secure, reliable connectivity for high-frequency transactions.

We devised a Cloud Connect solution based on local Alibaba Cloud/AWS access points and their existing interconnection capacity, establishing a highly scalable, adaptable, and high-bandwidth private connection that can be scaled up to 10 Gbps per inter-cloud connection. This minimized inter-cloud latency to 2 milliseconds and reduced packet loss by 50% compared to their previous public VPN connections, improving transaction speeds and enhancing user satisfaction worldwide.

Ready to fast-track your Asia expansion towards success?

Zenlayer’s extensive network combined with Equinix’s global data center presence gives you unmatched reach and optimal network performance in Asia. Together, we offer cost-effective access to a massive ecosystem of clouds, service providers, and SaaS partners, streamlining your operations to give your business agility and a competitive edge throughout the region. You can count on our expertise to help ensure regulatory compliance and quickly capture new markets with our rapid deployment services.

Contact an expert today to streamline your expansion and accelerate your success in Hong Kong with Zenlayer and Equinix!

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on November 9, 2024.

At Zenlayer, we understand the complexities of deploying digital infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific. During our recent webinar, Navigating Compliance When Deploying Digital Infrastructure, we covered how businesses can overcome regulatory challenges when entering key markets in Asia, particularly China. Led by Han Le, our general counsel, and Craig Kaplan, our SVP of North America and Europe, the webinar highlighted critical compliance challenges your business might face as you consider global expansion, and how Zenlayer’s hyperconnected infrastructure and expertise can help.

Asia’s unique compliance requirements

Expanding into the region involves navigating a maze of regulations, many of which are more stringent than those in the U.S. or Europe. Some of the most significant challenges include:

• Strict Content Monitoring: Several countries here enforce heavy restrictions on the type of content that can be transmitted through their networks. China’s “Great Firewall” is a prime example of how content is filtered and monitored. If not navigated properly, these regulations can lead to service disruptions.
• Legal Presence Requirements: Many jurisdictions require foreign businesses to have a legal entity or a local representative on the ground. This is an important step for companies accustomed to the free-market environment of the West, where such regulations are less common.
• Changing Data Privacy Laws: Data privacy regulations in Asia can vary significantly between countries, and the interpretation of these laws often changes over time. Keeping up with these changes is critical to maintaining compliance and ensuring smooth operations.
• ICP Filing in China: Businesses operating a public-facing website or serving content within China must obtain an ICP Filing and, depending on the type of content served, an Internet Content Provider (ICP) license. This enables the provision of online services and content without risk of being shut down.

Succeed in Asia with Zenlayer

At Zenlayer, we’ve built a powerful global infrastructure that not only provides the technical capabilities your business needs to succeed in the Asia-Pacific but also the necessary expertise to ensure compliance with local regulations. Our network spans over 300 edge nodes and 10,000+ peering relationships worldwide, helping your business achieve unparalleled connectivity and performance no matter where you operate.

To help you smoothly navigate the compliance landscape in Asia, we offer:

• Expert regulatory support: Our dedicated information security team, based in Shanghai, works closely with local regulators to ensure that your business operations remain compliant. By maintaining regular communication with authorities, we help prevent costly disruptions and service failures.
• Partnerships with China’s top telcos: Zenlayer has strong partnerships with China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile-the country’s top telcos and the only three entities globally licensed to bring traffic in and out of China. This unique advantage helps you gain seamless access to the massive Chinese market.
• Rapid infrastructure deployment: Zenlayer excels in deploying customized infrastructure quickly. In one notable case, we deployed network infrastructure between Shanghai and Hong Kong in less than 30 days, followed by six additional edge nodes across Southeast Asia. Our ability to meet fast deployment timelines while adhering to local compliance requirements sets us apart.

Expert recommendations for your Asia expansion

During the webinar, our General Counsel Han Le emphasized the importance of early planning and choosing the right partners when expanding into the Asia-Pacific. Here’s what we recommend if you’re looking to succeed in the region:

• Work with local experts: Zenlayer’s presence in Asia’s markets gives us a unique advantage in helping companies navigate local regulations. Partnering with a provider that understands the local regulatory environment is key to ensuring compliance.
• Plan for compliance early: Integrating compliance into your overall business strategy from the start will help avoid delays and disruptions later on. We work closely with customers to ensure they are fully compliant before any infrastructure is deployed.

Simplify your expansion with Zenlayer

Expanding into Asia is no small feat, but with the right partner, you can navigate the region’s complex regulatory environment with confidence. Our emerging market expertise, local presence, and partnerships with key players in the region make us the ideal partner to help you accelerate digital infrastructure expansion in Asia. By taking advantage of Zenlayer’s fast, compliant, and reliable solutions, you can focus on growing your business without worrying about regulatory roadblocks.

For more information on how Zenlayer can help your business expand into Asia, talk to an expert today!

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on October 24, 2024.

“The world today is in a ‘war’ to gain AI capabilities…whichever controls AI can potentially control the world.” — Indonesian President Joko Widodo

Indonesia is quickly becoming a key player in the global AI race, drawing companies far and wide eager to capitalize on its rapid economic growth and strategic location at major maritime trade routes. By 2024, the country is projected to be the fourth-largest economy by PPP and eighth by GDP, positioning it as a high-income country. Coupled with high internet penetration and the world’s fourth largest population of 270+ million with an average age of just 29, Indonesia offers a vast consumer market and dynamic, youthful workforce.

In recent years, the government’s commitment to digital transformation and substantial investments into its National AI Strategy, Stranas KA, has catapulted this archipelagic nation into the global spotlight for AI development and innovation. Notably, major players like Microsoft, which is funding initiatives to train 800,000+ local workers as part of its $1.7 billion investment, and NVIDIA, which is pouring $200 million to build an AI Talent Development Center, are betting big on the Southeast Asian country’s potential.

Challenges of deploying AI in Indonesia

Despite its promising potential, AI companies face several key challenges when considering deployment in Indonesia:

• Logistical and compliance complexities — the region’s rigid regulations and complex networking and data center vendor landscapes can be a nightmare to manage without a trusted partner who can help navigate and streamline
• Poor latency and performance — low latency, stability, and bandwidth are significant concerns for AI applications that need seamless, large-volume data flow and real-time processing
• Regional market fragmentation — Indonesia’s incredibly diverse geography and Southeast Asia’s dispersed populations make it difficult to reach users in remote locations

Keep reading to see how Zenlayer’s end-to-end AI solutions can help position your company for success in Indonesia and beyond.

Conquer regional complexities with turnkey data center solutions

Zenlayer’s comprehensive, turnkey data center services are designed to unburden you from the stress of navigating Indonesia’s complex regulatory and logistical landscapes so you can easily and rapidly establish or expand your company’s presence in the region. Below, we’ll dive into Indonesia’s data center landscape, AI data center best practices, and the advantages of working with Zenlayer in your AI journey.

Indonesia’s strategic data center expansions

As of 2023, the country boasts 80+ data centers with a total power consumption of 650MW+, primarily located in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, and Medan. With Jakarta situated as a major hub, data centers are strategically distributed across the city center as well as southern and eastern areas to ensure comprehensive coverage.

To further garner investments, the Indonesian government has designated special economic zones on the island city of Batam, offering juicy financial incentives like tax breaks. This initiative has fueled the rapid expansion of data centers across the nation as growing market demand in high-tech, including AI, continues to soar.

A handy shopping list for AI data centers

To effectively develop and support AI applications, our experts strongly advise that your chosen data centers meet the following criteria:

• High reliability and availability — AI data centers should adhere to T3/T3+ operating standards, like those we offer in Indonesia, to ensure ample power for high-quality service continuity.
• High power density — some applications, especially those involving deep learning and training, demand more processing power that can reach 10KW per cabinet. Zenlayer offers data centers conveniently located in the heart of Jakarta that meet this requirement.
• Efficient cooling — AI hardware generate a ton of heat, so advanced water- or air-cooling systems are a must to ensure performance and uptime. Our data centers feature N+1 configuration, which provides an additional backup for every set of cooling systems and 2N, which guarantees a complete duplicate of the entire cooling infrastructure for optimal redundancy.
• Scalability — as with most other business applications, the ability to quickly scale resources in response to changing demands is essential. Zenlayer data centers offer plenty of space, and our experts can provide recommendations as you strategize for growth.
• Superior connectivity — high-speed, low-latency networking underpins real-time data processing, with optimal cluster distances being under 50 meters.

The Zenlayer advantage

We offer 18 strategic data center locations across the country, including 14 data centers covering key areas throughout Jakarta as well as 2 in Surabaya, 1 in Medan, and 1 in Pekanbaru.

Here’s a snapshot of a few data centers we offer in the region:

In addition, Zenlayer supports all aspects of data center management across 300+ global locations, availing:

• Hardware purchase, transport, and delivery
• Site selection guidance
• Customs clearance assistance
• Deployment and configuration support
• Equipment and network monitoring
• Dedicated on-site technical support

Leveraging our large data center footprint in Indonesia, it’s quick and easy to connect to clouds, on-prem stacks, and other data centers where your data is hosted to optimize resource allocation, improve user experience, and comply with local data sovereignty.

Backed by decades of experience helping businesses succeed in Asia, Zenlayer guarantees compliance so you can focus your attention on hitting milestones without being bogged down by red tape.

Maximize performance with edge AI and a fabric designed for AI

Zenlayer offers a robust suite of solutions designed to address performance challenges in AI deployment, including edge GPUs and fabric for AI.

Our hyperconnected, global private network fabric connects from Jakarta to Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Cyberjaya, Singapore, Manila, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and other key hubs throughout Southeast Asia in ultra-low latency to ensure efficient and secure data flow for AI model development and application, with a large selection of services that can all be provisioned through a single port. Zenlayer’s high-capacity network makes handing multi-Tbps traffic a breeze, enabling frequent, large-volume data transfers that are integral to many AI processes. Our advanced fabric dynamically routes traffic to ensure the most efficient path of delivery, ensuring data integrity and high-speed flow for faster training and inferencing.

In addition, our edge AI solutions let you bring powerful GPU compute closer to users and data sources to reduce latency and accelerate real-time processing. With popular cards like the 4090 and the high powered H100 and A100, it’s easy to unlock the processing power you need for complex AI workloads. Our flexible, competitive quarterly billing and upcoming on-demand deployments via zenConsole give your business unmatched agility and scalability to respond rapidly to fluctuating demands.

Reach users anywhere in Asia with a massive, global partner ecosystem

Leveraging our economy of scale and trusted partners, you can effortlessly and cost-effectively employ leading regional networks and service providers to extend your service locale, reaching even the most remote users with our high-quality local IP transit. You’ll also gain access to a massive network of data centers partners worldwide like Equinix and Digital Realty, along with more than 10,000 ISP, telecom carrier, and internet exchange peers like Telkom Indonesia, Viettel, PLDT, Indosat, Airtel, Tata, Singtel, Korea Telecom, SK Broadband, KDDI, Softbank, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, and many more.

Our global coverage and partner ecosystem combine to give you the confidence you need to expand your operations not just in Asia, but worldwide. No matter where your AI journey takes you, Zenlayer’s network and expertise are here to support your growth and strategic initiatives in any region.

Build your AI applications faster and easier with Zenlayer

Zenlayer’s integrated service ecosystem and end-to-end solutions are designed to meet the evolving needs of your AI business, ensuring seamless operations, ultra-low latency connectivity, and high-performance GPU compute to power your AI builds.

Contact a Zenlayer AI expert for today to kickstart your project with a free consultation.

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on September 10, 2024.

The AI industry is expanding rapidly and reshaping the way we innovate and interact with technology. Advancements in GPU, edge compute, and connectivity fuel this change, converging to create exciting opportunities for AI applications. Zenlayer is at the heart of this perfect storm, uniquely positioned to empower AI developers across diverse sectors.

As companies rush to build up their compute capabilities to keep up with the AI race, the importance of high-performance connectivity cannot be overlooked, underpinning everything in AI development from autonomous vehicles to personalized recommendations and text, image, and video generation.

In today’s AI-driven landscape, robust network infrastructure is essential to overcome challenges like interoperability, latency, and scalability. Below, we’ll dive into top infrastructural challenges AI companies face today, and how our integrated AI solutions can help your business overcome them to stay ahead of the curve.

Top infrastructural challenges in AI development

• Integration and interoperability difficulties: AI companies often need to integrate diverse data sources and systems to ensure model efficiency and performance. Inability to integrate effectively creates data silos that slow model development.
• High latency and unreliable connectivity: AI applications, especially ones that process and inference in real time, are highly sensitive to network latency and unreliable connectivity. Latency delays data in transmission, resulting in poor response times and user experiences.
• Hindered scalability and performance: As the industry rebounds from the pandemic-era chip shortage, the explosion of global AI application development is creating skyrocketing demand for high-performance GPUs. Difficulty sourcing cards and high costs can lead to developmental bottlenecks.

Overcoming AI infrastructural challenges is easy with Zenlayer

We offer infrastructure solutions designed to meet the diverse needs of AI sectors, ensuring seamless support for every segment from data providers and aggregators to companies that deliver AI services to end-users.

Here’s a brief overview of how Zenlayer’s solutions can empower AI companies:

• AI application developers: Real-time inference is critical for AI applications to ensure rapid and reliable delivery of results for efficient development, necessitating both high availability and low latency — features of our advanced global network.
• Large model developers: Companies working on large AI models require high-performance networking for large-volume AI data transfers and powerful GPUs like the NVIDIA A100 and H100 cards we offer to enable complex training and development.
• Data providers and aggregators: these entities need secure multi-cloud connectivity to integrate and process data from various sources seamlessly, benefiting greatly from our direct connections to all major public clouds worldwide.
• End-user companies: High-quality local IP transit and a low latency network are essential for enterprises developing their in-house AI models, which we can provide across all major global regions, including difficult-to-reach locations.

Simplify integration and interoperability with turnkey AI data center services

Our suite of managed data center services can help ensure integration and interoperability to optimize your operational efficiency. This includes consultancy services like cost assessment, where our experts evaluate your data center needs to identify areas for cost optimization without compromising performance or reliability. Our proactive maintenance services guarantee that your equipment runs smoothly, minimizing downtime and improving service stability. And as your AI workload data grows, we can help with flexible backup options and space-scaling recommendations so that your infrastructure is equipped to adapt to rising demands.

We also offer the following support services for all aspects of data center management across 300+ globally distributed edge nodes:

• Hardware purchase, transport, and delivery
• Site selection guidance
• Customs clearance assistance
• Deployment and configuration support
• Equipment and network monitoring
• Dedicated on-site technical support

Additionally, we provide quick and easy connectivity to clouds, on-premises equipment, and other data centers at your hosting location to ensure seamless integration and operations.

Cut latency and boost connectivity with a hyperconnected fabric for AI

Zenlayer’s proprietary fabric for AI features a hyperconnected global private network with ultra-low latency that’s designed to meet the rigid demands of AI. Our advanced network infrastructure dynamically routes traffic for the most efficient path of delivery, ensuring secure and speedy data transfers.

As AI compute is often hosted in public clouds whereas sensitive data is stored on-premises, maintaining robust connectivity between clouds, data centers, and on premises equipment is a must. Our fabric for AI makes interconnecting global resources simple and secure, helping you establish the ideal setup that best suits your operations.

Leveraging the private global backbone that powers our fabric for AI, you can ensure that your data transfers are secure and free from public network risks like prying eyes and peak-hour disruptions, safeguarding sensitive information and accelerating data flow for enhanced inference and training.

Best of all, you can start building out your AI network with a single multi-purpose port, simplifying connections to all your AI compute clusters worldwide.

Zenlayer’s fabric for AI is a great fit for the following use cases:

• Multimodal learning: These AI models often require a diverse range of data types for training that can include text, images, audio, and video. Our lightning-fast backbone can fast-track aggregation and processing for more efficient learning and development.
• Inference-training feedback: Real-time AI applications depend on rapid data flow between training and inference nodes. Our network’s ultra-low latency accelerates this data flow to enhance real-time performance and availability.
• Reliable access and delivery: User satisfaction is the result of good user experience, which depends on the reliable access and delivery of your AI services. Leveraging our premium IP transit blends and rich ecosystem of local service providers worldwide, you can accelerate end-user visits to inference clusters for faster results and better performance. If your service caters to a global customer base, cross-border user visits can be further enhanced via Global Accelerator for improved flow.

Maximize scalability and performance with cost-effective GPU at the edge

Zenlayer’s edge AI solution brings powerful GPU compute closer to data sources to reduce latency and enhance real-time processing. Businesses can access popular NVIDA GPUs including the 4090 and high-powered cards like the H100 and A100 to achieve the computational power needed for complex AI workloads.

Zenlayer offers flexible and cost-effective GPU pricing:

• 4090 GPUs start at $0.63 per hour with a three-month commitment
• H100 GPUs start at $3.25 per hour with a three-month commitment

We employ a quarterly billing model rather than the two- to three-year contracts typically required by other providers so that you can more effectively scale your GPU resources according to real business needs without being locked into long-term commitments.

Additionally, we’ll soon launch on-demand deployment that lets you quickly and easily provision GPU compute around the world via zenConsole, our intuitive self-service portal. This gives you greater agility and scalability to rapidly respond to fluctuating demands and workloads for improved cost alignment and operational efficiency.

Build your AI applications faster and easier with Zenlayer

Zenlayer’s integrated service ecosystem and end-to-end solutions are designed to meet the evolving needs of your AI business, ensuring seamless operations, ultra-low latency connectivity, and high-performance GPU compute to power your AI builds.

Contact a Zenlayer AI expert for today to kickstart your project with a free consultation.

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on August 23, 2024.

• Met critical project deadlines cost-effectively via Zenlayer’s rapid deployment and economy of scale
• Overcame complex regulatory and logistical hurdles to successfully expand to Saudi Arabia
• Established robust connectivity between locations via Zenlayer’s high-speed private global backbone

About the customer

Industry: Networking and IT
Needs: Rapid deployment, compliance guidance, enterprise connectivity
Zenlayer services used: IP Transit, Cloud Networking, Edge Colocation, Remote Hands

The customer is a world leader in networking and IT boasting a towering workforce of over 80,000 employees worldwide. The multinational enterprise wanted to deploy new data centers to support their business units and expand their footprint to Saudi Arabia, specifically in Jeddah and Riyadh, to further their strategic growth and take advantage of recent regional initiatives and funding towards digital transformation efforts.

However, they faced significant logistical and regulatory barriers that made establishing their own operations in the region difficult.

The challenge: decoding complex regional regulations and tackling logistical hurdles

As the networking and IT leader began their expansion to Saudi Arabia, they realized that they lacked the necessary licensing to set up their own data centers in the region. Further, with no existing local presence, business entity, or operational staff on the ground in-country, the company found it virtually impossible to efficiently manage and oversee deployments.

Time was not on their side, as they needed a swift and reliable deployment to take advantage of the significant infrastructure investments pouring into the country.

To address all these barriers to expansion while staying under budget, the networking giant sought out a strategic partner who can navigate the complexities of the local market to deploy rapidly in scale while satisfying their cost alignment.

Establishing robust connectivity for backhauling data

With the help of Zenlayer’s edge colocation services, the customer was able to smoothly deploy their new data centers in Jeddah and Riyadh. Further, secure, high-speed connectivity was established to backhaul data between two existing sites in Mumbai, India via our global private backbone, ensuring a high-performance and reliable network to support the customer’s global business units.

Recognizing the networking company’s urgency and fleeting window of opportunity, we were able to drastically accelerate their project by leveraging our enduring relationships with local service providers and logistics partners. Our rapid deployment capabilities and economy of scale helped the customer meet their deadlines efficiently and cost-effectively.

Returning to Zenlayer for additional expansions

The networking and IT leader turned to our team to help them navigate the complex regulatory and logistical challenges of expanding into Saudi Arabia in large part due to their previous experience with Zenlayer. Leveraging our decades of experience in the region and established presence in emerging markets, we were able to help the customer smoothly and successfully deploy in India, South Korea, and other key locations.

Not only did we provide them with the essential infrastructure and local expertise, our flexibility and adaptability allowed us to tailor specific solutions for their unique needs. By handling all the customer’s infrastructure requirements, including both third-party and in-house remote hands for initial configuration, racking, and stacking, we empowered the network company to shift their focus back to their core products and services.

Looking ahead

Zenlayer was able to address the customer’s immediate needs while positioning them for faster future expansions in emerging markets. We will continue to collaborate with the world-leading networking and IT services provider to ensure the performance of their enterprise network and simplify their upcoming expansion efforts in the Middle East and Africa.

Simplify cross-border enterprise networking with Zenlayer

We leveraged our lightning-fast global backbone, enduring partnerships with service providers, and end-to-end solution and support to help the customer successfully complete their expansion into Saudi Arabia.

If you’re looking to expand your business’s global footprint, streamline operations, or accelerate apps or services to improve user experience, talk to a Zenlayer solution expert today!

For instant provisioning, check out zenConsole — our self-service platform that lets you deploy around the world in minutes.

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on July 12, 2024.

Key points:

• Enhanced remote team collaboration and public cloud access via Cloud Connect
• Optimized network with Zenlayer’s private backbone, making cross-border operations more efficient and secure while boosting user experience
• Reduced costs and simplified digital infrastructure by working with a one-stop shop vendor

About the customer

Industry: Financial services
Needs: Improved cloud access, latency reduction, cross-border connectivity, enhanced security
Zenlayer services used: IP Transit, Cloud Connect, Cloud Networking,

The customer is a prominent financial services provider in Southeast Asia with over $1 billion in sales and a workforce surpassing 500 employees. Faced with persistently unstable cloud performance, the customer needed to optimize its digital infrastructure to enhance user experience for its distributed workforce.

Their main goals were to streamline access to mission-critical cloud-based applications, minimize connectivity issues, and bolster overall security.

The challenge: enhancing cloud performance for remote team productivity

The financial services provider suffered from suboptimal cloud performance, which lead to operational inefficiencies and frustrated remote and on-site employees. Recognizing that a dependable digital infrastructure is critical in ensuring seamless cross-border operations, the customer started searching for a comprehensive solution capable of addressing the multifaceted networking environments across Asia’s diverse markets.

Elevating teamwork efficiency through fast, reliable cross-border connectivity

To help improve network performance, we leveraged our regional partner, PLDT, to deploy a customized solution comprised of two local loops connecting the financial services provider’s office and disaster recovery site in the Philippines. These local loops were strategically connected to our local edge nodes in Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

Through these edge nodes, we were able to establish direct connections to the customer’s public clouds leveraging Cloud Connect and Zenlayer’s private, redundant backbone with network optimization technology. This solution ensured fast, dependable, and secure connectivity for the company’s remote team members, resulting in smoother collaborations and greater overall productivity.

Minimizing costs and simplifying digital infrastructure buildouts

The customer opted for Zenlayer due to our competitive pricing and comprehensive solution offerings that addressed their needs and Asia’s unique network requirements. Our regional partnerships and extensive edge-node presence enabled a unified solution across multiple markets, saving the customer from the hassle of sourcing multiple vendors and costly piecemeal solutions.

Accelerate enterprise expansion with Zenlayer

Zenlayer’s lightning-fast cloud networking, extensive coverage in Asia, and local expertise helped the customer streamline and enhance their cross-border enterprise network for improved productivity and operational efficiency.

If you’re looking to expand your business’s global footprint, streamline operations, or accelerate apps and services to improve user experience, talk to a Zenlayer solution expert today!

For instant provisioning, check out zenConsole — our self-service platform that lets you deploy around the world in minutes.

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on June 20, 2024.

Welcome to Zenlayer’s technical blog, where you will learn about our latest innovation — Network Load Balancer (NLB). NLB operates at the transport layer (layer 4) and is designed to enhance network reliability, operational efficiency, and the overall capabilities of our hyperconnected cloud infrastructure.

Understanding the role of NLB

In the world of global edge networks, traditional networking devices like routers and switches operate at lower layers (layer 2 and layer 3), focusing on static packet forwarding. While reliable and fast, they lack the intelligence needed to optimize network performance. On the other hand, servers handle higher layers, executing application logic. However, they often face performance bottlenecks and lower availability.

This is where our NLB steps in. Operating at the packet header and layer 4 protocol level, it dynamically forwards packets based on application state. This intelligent routing bridges the gap between servers and networking devices, optimizing both reliability and operational efficiency.

The significance of NLB

The need for NLB arises from various factors, such as hardware/software failure rates that impact server availability. Our NLB mitigates risks associated with issues like buggy firmware, design flaws in servers, memory or power module failures, and bad optical fibers. It also facilitates server movements for maintenance or business needs with features like connection training.

Technical breakdown: leveraging DPVS for high performance

Our NLB leverages DPVS — a high-performance layer-4 load balancer based on DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit). We chose DPVS for the following reasons:

• High Packet Processing Capabilities: DPVS enables a staggering 20 million ingress packets per second (PPS) for a single point of presence (PoP), ensuring lightning-fast packet forwarding.
• High Availability: Comparable to networking equipment, DPVS guarantees exceptional availability crucial for mission-critical cloud services.
• Ease of Deployment: DPVS is designed for seamless deployment across our expansive global edge network, supporting our agile operational model.

High packet processing capabilities

DPVS addresses the issue of low software forwarding performance, a problem often associated with traditional kernel-based forwarding solutions. While these solutions offer rich functionality and stability, they fall short in performance for real-time intensive applications like load balancers, rendering them unsuitable for production use.

To illustrate, the traditional Linux network forwarding path follows these steps:

1. Packets arrive at the network interface card (NIC).
2. The NIC generates an interruption to notify the operating system (OS).
3. The OS responds by copying the packet into the kernel memory.
4. The kernel protocol stack processes the packet, including routing table lookups.
5. The OS copies the processed packet back to the NIC buffer.
6. The NIC is notified to transmit the packet.

In contrast, DPDK employs an entirely different, but more efficient approach:

1. DPDK uses a polling mechanism where dedicated CPUs continuously check if there are new packets arriving at the NIC, avoiding interruptions.
2. Through DMA mechanisms, packets are directly transferred to user-space memory pre-allocated by DPDK, eliminating the need for kernel copying, known as zero copy.
3. DPDK utilizes Huge Pages to reduce memory management overhead, including reducing cache misses and TLB buffer pressure.
4. DPDK implements a simpler protocol stack compared to the kernel.
5. DPDK utilizes lockless ring buffers, batch reception (RX)/transmission (TX), RX steering, CPU affinity, and other techniques to enhance performance. We’ll deep dive into the importance of CPU affinity optimization later in the blog.

The following diagram visualizes the similarities and differences in the packet forwarding steps between the kernel and DPDK.

DPVS guarantees high availability

Using our popular node Jakarta (JKT) in Southeast Asia as an example, within the last 15 days, an 8-way Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) cluster hasn’t dropped any packets. The average inbound packet rate for the cluster is 3M packets per second (pps). Over 15 days, the cluster has forwarded 3,888,000,000,000 (i.e. 3.888 trillion) packets with zero drop.

DPVS is designed for easy deployment

During the actual deployment of DPVS, several factors need to be considered such as configuring CPU affinity, which needs to be adjusted according to the specific characteristics of the CPU. Otherwise, packet forwarding may be affected by other processes, causing intermittent random packet loss.

Taking Intel CPUs as an example, a DPDK program only uses CPU cores from one NUMA node. If hyper-threading is enabled, only one logical core within each physical core is used, and the other logical core is not utilized. You can use cpu_layout.py to view the CPU core distribution. The 1GB huge pages memory is also allocated on this NUMA node. All CPUs used by the program, including control and forwarding cores, need to be isolated from the system.

The traditional isolcpus isolation method is no longer effective on Ubuntu 22.04, so systemd must be used. For example, with a dual-socket Xeon Gold 6226R system, if DPVS uses 1 control core + 8 forwarding cores + 1 KNI core, a new file named dpvs.slice should be created with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Slice for DPVS
Before=slices.target

[Slice]
AllowedCPUs=16–25

In the dpvs.service file, add the following:

[Service]
Slice=dpvs.slice

To set the CPUs available for other processes (e.g. monitoring program like Prometheus/Zabbix or control plane agent), use the following commands:

systemctl set-property system.slice AllowedCPUs=0–15,26–31,32–47,58–63
systemctl set-property user.slice AllowedCPUs=0–15,26–31,32–47,58–63

DPVS is more cost-effective

Unlike commercial load balancers like the F5, DPVS operates at the cost level of x86 servers, ensuring optimal performance without breaking the bank.

Comparison with other load balancer solutions

Our decision to adopt DPVS over other load balancer solutions was driven by rigorous performance and feature comparisons:

• Kernel-based Solutions (e.g., LVS): These solutions, while stable and feature-rich, exhibit medium to low performance, with packet loss becoming evident beyond 1.5 million PPS in production. They also require excessive server resources, rendering them less cost-effective.
• Pure L3-based Solutions (e.g., ECMP): ECMP solutions are vulnerable to active set changes, and face challenges with scalability and manageability, particularly when backend configurations exceed 20,000 nodes.
• XDP-based Solutions (e.g., Meta’s Katran): XDP-based solutions, while offered as a service, often fall short in terms of feature set and customization, limiting their suitability for our diverse requirements.
• Commercial Products (e.g., F5 BIG-IP): Commercial products like F5 BIG-IP, while feature-rich, are cost-prohibitive for widespread deployment across our extensive network of 300+ PoPs.

Our development journey and commitment to excellence

Behind the scenes, our team has been diligently refining our NLB. Addressing production challenges, we’ve tackled bugs and introduced critical features like fragmentation reassembly and TCP_SLOPPY to optimize performance:

• Bug fixes
  In the process of refining our NLB, we encountered some situations not usually found in upstream open-source projects due to differences in business environment requirements between us and the authors of DPVS. For instance, we encountered a VLAN interface deletion hang. When deleting a VLAN interface, the underlying KNI interface needs to be released. However, if the KNI interface is still asynchronously receiving packets and lacks proper locking, it can lead to underlying data anomalies and a deadlock. Additionally, we’ve identified some IPv6 related bugs that occur when adding and deleting IPv6 addresses, which cause the NIC multicast allow-list to be deleted, leading to network interruption.
• Feature enhancements
  Typically, a TCP SYN packet is considered the start of a new connection. However, when TCP_SLOPPY is enabled, an ACK packet can also be recognized as the start of a new connection. After the ACK packet is validated, it undergoes load balancing by selecting backend nodes through MH (Maglev Hash). MH selects backend nodes based on the source IP or source port. In situations where the backend node remains unchanged, it will continue to select the same backend node. This ensures that if one director fails and the packet is redirected to another director, it will still be routed to the same backend node.
• By utilizing the MH algorithm, we’ve eliminated the need for complex director connection synchronization. Additionally, by combining this with the network switch’s ECMP, we’ve been able to:
  1. Implement and active-active mode.
  2. Add or remove directors without causing any traffic interruption.

• Built on bare metal: We’ve leveraged our robust bare metal infrastructure for seamless deployment, ensuring optimal performance and reliability.
• Dogfooding for deployment facilitation: By using our own services extensively, we’ve streamlined deployment processes and enhanced user experience. We’ve implemented a robust control plane by doing the following:
  1. Combining the benefits of our bare metal BGP feature, which allows customers to advertise their own IP/ASN to our uplink IP transit carriers. This enables customers to bring their own IP (BYOP), allowing control plane services to focus on managing the DPVS cluster and speeding up the development and deployment process.
  2. We’ve implemented API-based dynamic configuration, including creating and modifying VIP, Listener Port, Health Checker, etc., which can take effect within seconds.
  3. We’ve introduced a multi-level and flexible configuration check mechanism. It provides three hierarchical inspection modes for NLB nodes, VLANs, and NLB instance resources, and verifies all NLB configurations before introducing network traffic, ensuring the correctness of the configuration and network connectivity.
  4. The edge control plane of the NLB node is configured with a local cache policy to tolerate the offline service of the central control plane.

We’ve also made significant investments in monitoring. Our real-time monitoring and alert system spans across 160 global data centers, ensuring comprehensive coverage. The system collects 760K metrics per second and processes 65 billion data records daily.

Results and future plans

Our NLB is currently deployed on 40% of our edge nodes with plans for full deployment across all nodes imminent. This service has been key in catering to our most demanding customers, handling up to 50 million packets per second (pps) and scaling globally to 1,000 million pps during network traffic spikes.

Looking ahead, we’re committed to leveraging the latest hardware technologies, like AMD Zen4 CPUs and Intel IPU, to further enhance our NLB capabilities. We will continue to invest in our global network infrastructure to offer regional NLB services and expand our reach.

Final thoughts

Zenlayer’s NLB is more than just a technical solution-it’s a testament to our commitment to innovation and customer-centric development. By marrying advanced software with raw hardware and maintaining a relentless focus on research and development, we’re delivering unique value to our hyperconnected cloud customers.

Join us on this journey of building exceptional cloud networking services. Our dedicated team, boasting diverse technical abilities, is key to overcoming challenges and creating value for our customers.

Stay tuned for future updates and insights into our NLB service and other technical endeavors!

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on June 4, 2024.

Meet your new favorite tool for rapid business growth and network expansion

Today’s organizations face mounting network demands as digital transformation continues to accelerate across the world. Recognizing that smooth and efficient daily operations depend on flexible, effective management of ever-expanding network infrastructure and resources, we’re excited to introduce our new port-based model designed to simplify network expansion and management for IT leaders everywhere.

Empower your business with a one-stop shop for all network needs, all accessible through a single port. When you provision a port with Zenlayer, you’ll be able to streamline operations, accelerate expansions, and get complete control over your network resources leveraging a massively distributed global backbone and the most hyperconnected network fabric in emerging markets.

What is a port and where does it fit into the Zenlayer ecosystem?

A port is a numbered, physical or virtual endpoint between computers or network devices that is used to differentiate between types of network traffic. It enables communication by directing data to a specific application or service.

Purchasing a port within the Zenlayer Cloud Networking product ecosystem gives you direct access to our global network fabric, thereby unlocking our entire catalogue of cloud and networking services including IP transit; data center and public cloud interconnections; edge compute through bare metal and VMs; our layer 2 and layer 3 networking services; and much more.

How does this differ from the old way of purchasing from Zenlayer?

Previously, when you came to Zenlayer with a request, our experts would put together a solution for your specific scenario. While this is the industry standard, we felt that the process often took longer, particularly when customers encounter a new, unexpected need. This resulted in extra time to rebuild the solution, and required customers to purchase additional ports and circuits as their needs grew with their business.

You still have the option to purchase solutions, but our new port-based, self-service purchasing model lets you skip the line to make changes to your network configuration and scale on demand, giving your business the extra agility it needs to stay competitive in diverse market conditions.

And all it takes to start is a single port that unlocks the door to infinite possibilities.

How does opening a port with Zenlayer benefit my business?

Zenlayer’s full-service integrated ports go beyond being an ordinary port — it’s a powerful tool that can help accelerate your business growth. Easy to use, efficient, and flexible, our ports are your answer to a diverse range of network expansion and management needs, offering:

• Greater efficiency & scalability
  Each port can be multiplexed to support delivery of multiple different services, simplifying your network architecture, ensuring more efficient bandwidth utilization, and helping to futureproof your network infrastructure by making scaling quicker and easier.
• Simplified network expansion & management
  Instantly gain access to all Zenlayer products and service ecosystem through a single port provisioned via our self-service zenConsole with a few clicks. Quickly and easily connect to your most-used public clouds to build inter-cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments.
• Enhanced reach
  Leveraging our 300+ edge nodes across six continents, a single port lets you seamlessly interconnect on-prem equipment, global data centers, and remote resources to enhance your network coverage at the edge, helping you explore new markets with confidence.
• Faster provisioning and improved retention
  Keep users happy and returning by expanding your network according to their real-time needs. Rather than waiting weeks or months for traditional network service deployments, expanding your network via a port in Zenlayer’s product ecosystem significantly reduces provisioning times to days or depending on the service, even minutes.
• Flexible billing options
  We offer a daily flat rate pricing model that lets you pay as you go. You can also opt for monthly flat rate or 95thpercentile billing models upon request.

Which businesses benefit most from Zenlayer’s new port-based model?

If your organization has complex infrastructure needs that necessitate frequent scaling or configuration, you’ll love our ports for their fast provisioning, flexibility, and ease of management. Companies seeking resources in emerging markets around the world, especially throughout Asia, would also greatly benefit from the ability to access our host of networking and compute services through a single port for improved resource utilization and streamlined operations.

In addition, our port-based product model is great for:

How do I provision a port with Zenlayer?

Opening a port on zenConsole only takes a few clicks. To begin, log into zenConsole and navigate to Port either under Resource Overview on your home dashboard or via the Products dropdown menu from anywhere within the console.

On the Port product page, click on Create Port

Alternatively, you can also initiate port creation directly from the +Create dropdown found on the top-right corner of zenConsole, near your user profile.

Here in the Port Creation module, select the city and data center where you want the port to be created, select your desired port speed, give it a label, and enter your business entity name as instructed.

Double check to make sure the data center provider, location, and address are verified. Note that the business entity name provided here will be included on the Letter of Authorization (LOA) provided by Zenlayer to order cross-connects with the data center. Please allow 24–48 hours for the LOA to be completed and made available to you.

When you’re finished, agree to our policies and click on Confirm Order.

And that’s it! You’ve successfully opened a port with Zenlayer and are ready to start taking advantage of our entire suite of integrated products and services.

How do I connect my new port to services?

Connecting your services to your newly created port is quick and easy. Simply navigate to your list of ports by navigating to the Port product page as detailed above. If you’ve created any ports, they will be listed here along with their associated details.

Click on the port you wish to connect to a service to bring up its configuration module.

In this Port configuration module, click on +Connection near the top-right corner, where you can choose to either create a Private Connect for a layer 2 point-to-point connection, or Cloud Router for a layer 3 full mesh network.

If you’re not sure how to create a layer 2 or layer 3 connection on zenConsole, be sure to check out these handy guides in our documentation center.

Simplify your network with Zenlayer Cloud Networking

Instantly provision a private full mesh layer 3 network with Zenlayer Cloud Router or use Zenlayer Private Connect to establish a secure layer 2 point-to-point network that interconnects your data centers and clouds. Either way, you’ll experience ultra-low latency and enhanced reliability across the world.

Bring content and applications closer to users for drastically improved experiences with Zenlayer Bare Metal and Zenlayer Virtual Machine, and create your ideal enterprise cloud environment with Cloud Connect.

Can’t wait to streamline your business infrastructure and elevate service delivery? Reach out to our friendly solution experts or for the fastest service, check out zenConsole yourself today!

Originally published at https://www.zenlayer.com on May 17, 2024.