Equinix today announced a new product called Network Edge that lets enterprises deploy virtual network functions (VNFs) from Cisco, Juniper, and Palo Alto Networks within Equinix data centers.

CEO Charles Meyers hinted at offering NFV services in a September 2018 interview with SDxCentral saying that NFV represented an “additional opportunity” for Equinix. And now it’s offering these network services on Equinix’s interconnection platform without a physical data center deployment or hardware requirements.

“Network Edge really enables companies to modernize their network virtually in minutes by using NFV from industry-leading vendors to connect to their various components of our ecosystem, whether that be clouds or service providers or themselves over fabric at Equinix,” said John Hanahan, senior director of product management at Equinix.

The fabric Hanahan’s talking about is the company’s SDN-based connectivity platform, Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric, that went global in April in 37 markets across five continents. Network Edge also includes built-in integration to Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric.

The new Network Edge product is offered as a suite of vendor-neutral VNFs. Current Network Edge devices include the Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000v, Cisco SD-WAN, Juniper vSRX Virtual Firewall, and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Firewall. Hanahan said Equinix will add more devices onto the platform “later this year.”

The VNFs are initially launching in five locations: London; Amsterdam; Singapore; California's Silicon Valley; and Ashburn, Virginia. Equinix will add to its data centers in Chicago, Dallas, Sydney, and Frankfurt by August, Hanahan said. “That will give us a pretty good presence in the most cloud dense metros that we have and will really allow customers to reach out and establish points of presence virtually in those metros much more quickly than they ever have,” he added.

Additionally, Equinix provides direct, private connections to more than 2,500 cloud service providers including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-services (SaaS) companies in more than 200 worldwide data centers. So by bringing these network services closer to end users, clouds, and enterprise supply chains, Network Edge can also improve network optimization.

Because Equinix has data centers in 52 markets, one of the big use cases for the new NFV services will be “enabling multinationals that already use the Equinix platform to extend their reach into new markets,” Hanahan said.

Other use cases include cloud-to-cloud routing — virtual routers deployed using Network Edge can route data with ultra-low latency between two clouds — and migrating data from one cloud to another. Network Edge can also be used to deploy virtual cloud firewalls and can deploy a virtual firewall in conjunction with physical firewalls.

And finally, it can enable branch-to-cloud SD-WAN. Network Edge can be used to build interconnection hubs at Equinix and optimize connectivity between branch locations, cloud providers, SaaS providers, and thousands of companies via ECX Fabric.

“Customers want flexibility in how they deploy and move to the cloud and they really want choices on where services are deployed,” including branch locations, public clouds, and colocation facilities like Equinix, said Rohan Grover, director of product management for enterprise routing and SD-WAN at Cisco. “Equinix is an ideal place for customers to host new services that they may not be comfortable hosting in the branch, or that’s too expensive to do in the branch.”

Grover added that 80% of Cisco customers use two or more cloud providers so this gives them additional flexibility in choosing a cloud provider and can potentially help them avoid vendor lock-in.

And for Cisco, partnering with Equinix means it can reach a broader range of customers by making its SD-WAN available in colocation facilities.

"Obviously, we want to be the SD-WAN vendor that is deployed everywhere," Grover said. “With this colocation solution we closed that entire loop and now we have the only cloud-scale SD-WAN solution that extends from branch, colo, and public cloud.”