Ascenty launches platform for global datacenter connections

Ascenty is enabling a platform for customers in South America to connect with global datacenters and public clouds, including third-party sites.

Dubbed ServiceFabric, the service is now available to customers of Ascenty datacenters in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. 

Fortaleza in northern Brazil and Chilean capital Santiago are due next. The service is scheduled to be launched in those two cities in the next 12 months. For now, there are no plans to launch it in Mexico where Ascenty also has operations, COO Marcos Siqueira told BNamericas.

“We're a means to connect the end-customer to the cloud. We already do this. We're partners with hyperscalers and we connect customers to them through cloud on-ramps, which are the structures that these companies have in our datacenters. Furthermore, our 5,000km fiber network allows interconnection with our and other datacenters,” said Siqueira.

“What ServiceFabric is bringing now is software with which customers can do this automatically and, most importantly, with access to all cloud availability zones in the world," he added.

The platform was developed by Digital Realty, which together with Brookfield controls Ascenty in a 50-50 JV. Digital Realty's ServiceFabric is available in more than 50 metropolitan regions across Asia-Pacific, EMEA and North America.

‘Fabric’ has become a common term in the datacenter realm to designate this cloud interconnection service. Equinix, a competitor of Ascenty, was one of the first to launch its Fabric.

Unlike the competition, Siqueira argues that ServiceFabric is not restricted to interconnection only with Digital Realty or Ascenty datacenters, as it also gives the customer the possibility of linking to public cloud services in competitors' facilities.

It may seem like a paradox, but Ascenty, like other companies in the market, positions itself as 'carrier-neutral' and has racks installed in datacenters other than its own.

“To give you an idea, our solution will enable more than 500 connection points, that is, with more than 500 datacenters spread across the world,” he said.

Siqueira also highlights the fact that Ascenty has a proprietary fiber network connecting its own datacenters, as well as third-party ones.

Of the company's 5,000km of network deployed in Latin America, 4,700km is in Brazil and the remaining 300km is in Mexico.

The decision to build in Brazil was taken due to the quality of the network and the prices that were offered by local carriers, said Siqueira. In other markets, Ascenty mainly leases capacity on the networks of carriers.

Despite this difference, the resilience of ServiceFabric in Chile will not be lower than in Brazil, according to the executive. “The Chilean market already offered some underground network options with very good quality and competitive prices. We didn't have to build fiber."

Ascenty's connectivity partners in Chile include Entel, Claro, Internexa, Ufinet and Cirion – the latter also competing with Ascenty in datacenter projects.

ROADMAP

The choice to launch ServiceFabric initially in Brazil, notably São Paulo, was due to market demand, the number of customers and also to test the model, he said.

Siqueira's forecast is for growth of up to 30% in the number of connections to hyperscalers in the first year of the service offering.

In the case of Mexico, Ascenty believes that its customers are closer to consuming these services directly from the US, with much lower latency, which is why it does not plan to offer ServiceFabric there in the near future.

Siqueira also said that the enterprise market for datacenters, as opposed to hyperscale clients, is stronger in Brazil and Chile than in Mexico.

COLOMBIA

The same is true of Colombia, where the company does not see demand for this type of service for now. 

Ascenty has not yet launched its operation in that country.

The activation of the group's first datacenter in Bogotá, initially scheduled for later this year, has been pushed back to 2025. Ascenty does not see Colombia's enterprise market as fully mature yet.

“We're not in a hurry. We're always accelerating or holding back our investments according to demand. In Colombia, I already have the two buildings ready, another lot of land secured, the permits granted and the energy as well,” said Siqueira.

For the expansion in Chile and Brazil, Ascenty is doing the opposite. It is accelerating its delivery schedule on the back of market demand.

In the case of Chile, its expansion projects are 10% ahead of the initial schedule, according to Siqueira.