A Cloud Exchange offers direct data pathways for in-cloud AI innovation

The cloud is the natural habitat of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation.

By using cloud-based Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) applications, your business benefits from the accessibility, agility, and scalability of the cloud. You can experiment with the latest AI technologies without investing large amounts of capital upfront, and can develop customized models to solve your enterprise’s specific problems.

But cloud performance can fluctuate considerably when the connection between the enterprise and the cloud service provider depends on the public Internet. Issues around latency, security, and resilience can all prevent your business taking full advantage of the AI applications on offer. 

The solution? To connect to the cloud via a Cloud Exchange on an interconnection platform.

How does a Cloud Exchange work?

When you use a Cloud Exchange, your business has a direct connection to the exchange. The exchange then extends your connection into the selected cloud. This onward connection uses direct, private connectivity to cloud service providers that bypasses the public Internet.

By using a Cloud Exchange you can work with a wide variety of cloud service providers, which means you can make use of AI applications that run in any cloud environment. As well as the leading cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle, you can also use a Cloud Exchange to connect to a wide range of regional or specialist providers to make use of their specific AI applications.

The benefits of a Cloud Exchange

Using a Cloud Exchange makes your cloud AI connectivity:

• Fast: Latency is minimized because your data takes the shortest possible path to the required cloud onramp.
• Simple: Your business can have direct connections to as many cloud service providers as you want and manage them all in one place – scaling up and down as necessary.
• Stable: Bypassing the public Internet minimizes downtime and guarantees continuous connection to your chosen cloud service providers.
• Secure: Direct, secure data pathways that avoid the public Internet reduce the risk of breaches or attacks that could impact your AI workloads.

Cloud Exchange case studies

Here’s how four businesses are currently benefiting from a Cloud Exchange:

net-maxX ensures speed and security

net-maxX has created the “German Metaverse”, a digital ecosystem where immersive 3D environments merge the virtual with the real. Data about the virtual world is stored on its own servers, but tasks such as video encoding are executed in the Amazon Cloud. Encrypted data is transferred to and from the Amazon Cloud using a Cloud Exchange. Variations in latency are reduced to one hundredth of those experienced using the public Internet, ensuring stable 1:n video transmission. In addition, data remains securely within Germany.

Borusan improves network performance

Leading industrial conglomerate Borusan used a site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) or the public Internet to access the Microsoft Azure cloud ecosystem. It experienced significant latency and had difficulty offering high levels of security for applications used at production sites. By switching to a Cloud Exchange the company improved network performance by 51% and reduced latency almost 60%.

dmTech optimizes its multi-cloud connectivity

Major drugstore chain dm-drogerie markt has pursued a hybrid multi-cloud strategy for several years and is increasingly shifting IT workloads to different cloud platforms. To support this strategy with stable, low-latency connectivity, it uses a Cloud Exchange to establish direct connections to various cloud providers. Connections to important servers hosted in the cloud now run at less than three milliseconds round trip time.

Automotive brand maximizes agility

A global automotive manufacturer uses a Cloud Exchange to establish connections from its own software to Azure, AWS, Google, and IBM. Its cloud connections can be established on-demand, at any time, in a matter of minutes, but can also be decommissioned again automatically. This setup significantly increases efficiency and standardization, supports new innovations through cost reductions and agility, and delivers an exceptional user experience.

Discover more secrets to AI success

Using a Cloud Exchange is a  major step towards the fast, secure, resilient connectivity needed to support AI innovation in the cloud. But it’s not the only element you need to consider. Read our guide, The Secret to AI Success to find out what your business needs to get the most out of cloud-based AI applications.