AHEAD, a leading provider of enterprise cloud solutions, announced today the launch of their new lab in collaboration with Equinix. The new AHEAD Lab combines on-premise performance with the convenience and scalability of the public cloud so that enterprises can test and leverage technologies to meet their growing infrastructure needs. Located at Equinix's CH3 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Chicago, the new lab represents AHEAD's continued collaboration with Equinix.

Using the lab, AHEAD customers can design and test technologies without the full commitment of time and resources associated with a mass migration to the cloud. Clients can experiment with any combination of public cloud services within Equinix's cloud-dense Chicago IBX data center, prior to deciding on a permanent move to the cloud.

"This lab will serve as an important asset to clients who are embarking on the cloud journey. It's a great opportunity for them to speed up the onboarding of cloud solutions, while mitigating the hidden costs and risks of adoption," said Brett Foy, engineering vice president at AHEAD. "The addition of Equinix means that our lab complex reflects a true enterprise cloud that most clients have to manage-a mixture of on-premises, Equinix-based, and public cloud capabilities."

Open now, the AHEAD Lab utilizes Equinix's global platform that spans 190 IBX data centers in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions, providing global consistency, reach, and scalability to customers.

Ryan Mallory, Equinix's vice president of global sales enablement, expects this endeavor to be a continuation of the company's central role in the acceleration of public and hybrid cloud adoption. "Equinix and public cloud interconnection have always gone hand-in-hand, as our global platform offers a cloud ecosystem that includes all of the top cloud providers," said Mallory. "Our work with AHEAD provides enterprises with access to a full suite of cloud technologies in a controlled environment that will help them rapidly and securely connect, test, and migrate workloads."