17 December 2020

2020 at DE-CIX: The Internet plays a vital role during an unusual year

2020 turned out to be a very different year from what we all thought it would be when we celebrated its arrival. Looking back, it is hard to decide where to start despite – or because of – the unusual circumstances; the past year at DE-CIX has been one of records, (online) celebrations, and the expansion of our interconnection ecosystem. 

Join us on a quick recap of the top DE-CIX moments of 2020. 

Celebrating 25 years of Internet history – without you it would not have been possible

2020 was our 25th anniversary year and together with our partners we looked back at 25 years of Internet and interconnection history. From data center developments and carriers which transport the data, through to the necessary hardware that makes our exchanges run – we shared insights about everything that makes the Internet possible. In addition, we also introduced the people behind DE-CIX, showing their everyday working life and offering some insights into what drives them. Get to know to our team here.

Due to Covid-19, our big birthday party had to be moved online, and we celebrated virtually in June. The show took us on an interactive journey around the world, exploring the history and the future of the Internet. During this unusual year, and looking back at how the Internet has developed and grown, one thing is certain: Without you, our partners, customers and friends, the Internet would not be what it is today.

Over 10 Tbps peak traffic and 1,000 networks in Frankfurt

In November, Frankfurt crossed the 10 Terabit per second (Tbps) peak traffic threshold. In February we were still at 8.3 Tbps, and then in March, shortly before the whole DE-CIX team started working from home, traffic made a big jump to over 9 Tbps. Overall, Frankfurt had the greatest increase in peak traffic since 1995, up by over 27 percent.

In this record-breaking year in Frankfurt, we also connected our 1,000th customer, Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft (DVV), in August. The DE-CIX team also won the Best Internet Exchange award at Global Carrier Awards, held also virtually for the first time.

New all-time traffic peaks across the world

But Frankfurt was not alone. Hamburg, Munich, and Marseille all crossed the 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps) line for the first time – the traffic in Hamburg, for example, increasing by 200 percent. Dallas, Istanbul, and UAE-IX all crossed the 200 Gbps line, and in New York we had a new all-time peak of 844 Gbps, up from 580 Gbps. Just last week, DE-CIX Madrid had a peak of 566 Gbps.

In India, where we have seen over 190 percent growth of data traffic overall, DE-CIX Mumbai recorded peak Internet traffic of 1.3 Tbps and is now the largest neutral Internet Exchange in the Indian subcontinent.

Expanding our interconnection services

On the services front, DirectCLOUD celebrated its third birthday with a new DirectCLOUD Flex option, as well as launching in our Mumbai exchange. Our Cloud Exchange now has over 50 cloud service providers and the service is available in most of our exchanges. In June the Microsoft Azure Peering Service, our first Closed User Group, became available – offering enterprises a direct connection to Microsoft 365.

We launched Blackholing Advanced and Blackholing Insights as beta services in Frankfurt to help customers fight DDoS attacks more effectively. And the beta service IPFIX Export helps you to get more detailed insights into traffic characteristics. We are working on bringing these services to more locations in the new year.

Growing interconnection ecosystem

We also announced four new locations starting with DE-CIX Singapore in January and followed by Barcelona, Chicago and Richmond (VA) in the past month. In between, we opened two new DE-CIX as a Service locations – SEECIX in Athens and Ruhr-CIX in the Ruhr region of Germany. 

In addition to new exchanges, we also added new enabled sites in Dallas, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Mumbai, and Munich.

Barcelona was our 25th Internet Exchange and to reach this milestone in our 25th birthday year was also special. Overall, our interconnection ecosystem now has 27 Internet Exchanges in 13 countries on three continents and you can connect from over 500 cities in over 80 countries worldwide.

Virtual reality events

Without our partners and customers and employees, we would not be where we are today. One thing we missed this year was meeting people face-to-face. But luckily, the people running the Internet can also easily meet on the Internet. 

Before the lockdown started in Germany, we managed to meet some of you at a few round table events. Since March, most of the team have been working from home and we have moved our events online. Our annual tech meeting was held in June and we had over 200 participants joining us over two days. We held online round tables and our Interconnection Summit was held in our very own virtual arena – one summit concentrating on Madrid and Southern Europe, and the second one on North America.

Thank you for your trust

Since the introduction of Covid-19 measures around the world, we have seen how these actions directly translate into Internet traffic growth. It is very clear that the Internet plays a vital role in these extraordinary times – and allows us to maintain at least some sense of normality. The year 2020 and the Internet would not have been the same without you, our partners, customers, connected networks, and the DE-CIX team. So, a big thank you to all of you and happy holidays – see you in 2021!