Equinix, Inc. announced the availability of Equinix Metal, a fully automated and interconnected bare metal service. Equinix Metal provides digital businesses with an automated, "as-a-service" deployment method to build their foundational infrastructure and take advantage of the global reach, interconnected ecosystems and trusted partners available on Platform Equinix. Equinix Metal is available today in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers across four global metros (Amsterdam, New York, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.), and is expected to be available in 14 global metros by early 2021. 

With this new service, companies have the option to deploy the physical infrastructure of their choice at software speed across Equinix's trusted platform. Together with other digital infrastructure building blocks in the Equinix portfolio, customers now have a broad range of physical and virtual deployment alternatives to place infrastructure wherever they need it and connect to everything they need to succeed. 

Featuring native integration with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric, which has been renamed Equinix Fabric, Equinix Metal helps enterprises seamlessly deploy hybrid multicloud architectures and quickly access thousands of networks, enterprises and clouds on Platform Equinix. By delivering high-performance dedicated servers in minutes via popular developer tools in both on-demand and reserved models, Equinix Metal helps businesses extract greater value from Platform Equinix's rich ecosystems more quickly, more easily and in more places than ever before. 

Building upon the recent acquisition of Packet-as well as technologies developed at Equinix-the addition of Equinix Metal expands Equinix's ability to help more companies gain digital advantage. By combining Packet's expertise in API-first, hardware automation and provisioning with Equinix's global reach, interconnection prowess and proximity to valuable ecosystems, Equinix Metal offers a powerful infrastructure building block on which digital leaders can deploy and scale their preferred infrastructure with agility and confidence. 

Key Facts: 

• With Equinix Metal, digital leaders can gain competitive advantage by building foundational infrastructure to directly and securely connect people, locations, clouds and data that matter most to their business. Key features of Equinix Metal include: 
  

• Automated: Equinix Metal is a fully programmable, easy-to-use and scalable solution. Businesses can click-and-configure, provision via API and common libraries, or leverage popular tools to quickly and reliably deploy and manage hybrid multicloud architectures.  
  

• Interconnected: Equinix Metal includes industry-first native integration to Equinix Fabric, a global, software-defined interconnection service available in 46 strategic markets. In under 15 minutes, users can deploy dedicated bare metal infrastructure across global locations and connect to Equinix Fabric for low-latency access to thousands of networks, enterprises and clouds.  
  

• Production Ready: With the acquisition of Packet in March 2020 and the integration of organic technology, Equinix Metal launches with a proven track record of performance, security and reliability trusted by hundreds of SaaS companies, enterprises, global service providers and open source projects.  
  

• Ecosystem Friendly:  By focusing on automating foundational hardware and supporting integrations to DevOps, hybrid cloud and open-source software solutions like Kubernetes, Equinix Metal extends the company's strategy of enabling customer choice through supporting neutral ecosystems. 
  

• Equinix Metal can address a broad set of use cases that value global reach and participation within digital ecosystems, including: 
  

• Hybrid Cloud-Deploy secure infrastructure that is proximate to ecosystems and enables reduced CAPEX and incremental scaling at software speed.   
  

• DevOps Automation-Rapidly provision physical infrastructure with robust, well-documented APIs and immediate access to supported ecosystem integrations.  
  

• Global Edge Delivery-Reduce latency, expand global reach and accelerate time to market to drive better end-user experiences.   
  

• Security & Compliance-Benefit from single tenancy and private connectivity, with access to hardware level security protocols.  
  

"With COVID-19 we've seen enterprises accelerate their digital transformation plans from years to months," said Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, ESG. "Today's digital leaders are increasingly gaining a competitive advantage by leveraging infrastructure choices that meet their exact needs and can be deployed globally and interconnected. By augmenting its portfolio of foundational services with high-performance, fully automated compute, the addition of Equinix Metal can help digital businesses extract greater value from Platform Equinix's rich ecosystems and global interconnection fabric and rapidly deploy the physical infrastructure of their choice." 

"Equinix Metal is another important step forward in our product portfolio, enabling enterprises to bring together and interconnect hybrid multicloud infrastructures at global scale on Platform Equinix," explained Sara Baack, Chief Product Officer, Equinix. "With Equinix Metal integrated with Equinix Fabric, infrastructure customers can move at software speed, and tap into the global reach, interconnection value, and unparalleled community of ecosystem partners that digital leaders have come to expect from Equinix."