Business Chief USA August 2020

Equinix and Colotraq:
joint data centre pioneers
Jules Johnston, Vice President, Americas Partner Sales
at data centre company Equinix, discusses the
company’s collaborative approach to interconnection.
Jules Johnston is Vice President, Americas Partner
Sales at data centre company Equinix. Having joined
in early 2016, she has overseen a move to new sales
channels as part of the company’s work. “The team
we’ve put together in the last few years has helped
the company go from what was single digits in terms
of partner-connected selling to something greater than
30% of our bookings globally,” she says. “We’re on a
path and committed to do the majority of our business
with partners, so it’s been very exciting to be part of
that. The team I lead today is the 40-person Americas
partner sales organisation, and our job is to work with
partners so that we can help our field and inside sellers
meet at the customer.”
While Equinix is renowned as a co-location and data
centre organisation, Johnston is clear that the company
takes a broader view. “We really think of ourselves as
an interconnection company and as the global platform
for digital business. So when companies build their
digital infrastructure and platforms within Equinix, what
they’re able to do is dynamically connect to the world’s
largest ecosystem of clouds, data, suppliers and
customers.” Constructing such an ecosystem has
required a significant amount of infrastructure. “Equinix
has invested in over 210 data centres around the world,
or international business exchanges, IBXs, as we call
them. That allows Equinix to be able to meet the needs
of any company today with global aspirations.”
Equinix works closely with colocation broker Colotraq,
with the organisation having been one of Equinix’s
master agents for around five years. “Colotraq is a
fellow pioneer in the data center space,” says Johnston.
“As one of the oldest master agents in telecom, they’ve
intersected with us naturally. Equinix started as a place
for the world’s networks to come together in a neutral
fashion and Colotraq also prides itself on being
network neutral.”
“One of the places that we intersect is in helping
customers in their network optimisation strategies,”
says Johnston. “We have the largest collection of
networks in the world in Equinix data centers, and
Colotraq advises companies on optimising their
network strategies and spend. We’ve had a really
long, productive association given that overlap.”
Incoming trends such as 5G, AI, IoT, blockchain
and more all signal a bright future for Equinix and
its cloud offering, with the company continuing
to prove invaluable for customers even during the
COVID-19 pandemic. “Equinix was able to help
a global financial powerhouse stand up 120,000
employees remotely in three days. In this current
climate, companies have a real need for that.
We’re able to use our digital platform to help
companies make those kinds of moves.”
Learn more
Jules Johnston @ Equinix
The partnership extends far beyond the
surface level, with Colotraq agents and
Equinix solutions architects jointly
meeting with customers to
advise on digital edge
strategy briefings.