Penta and Equinix Case Study

Managed service provider Penta needed a data centre provider who offered both a broad international presence and excellent peering with ISPs. By choosing to work with Equinix, Penta has been able to grow its business, achieve cost savings and win new customers from Equinix referrals.

Read the full Penta case study.

Business challenge

As it started to win customers in its early years, Penta needed to decide how the company would grow. After making the choice to collocate its equipment in external facilities, it set out to find a suitable partner. Farhad Khalilnia, Penta CEO explains:

“We were thinking of building our own data centres and running them ourselves. However, we realised our job was managing IT systems, not maintaining the actual data centres.”

Solution & value realised

“We wanted to work with a provider who had a good reputation and practical experience and who could give us the assurance that their facilities were the best,” continues Khalilnia. “Specifically, we wanted a provider that had a broad international footprint and had good peering with different ISPs. It could give us optimal connectivity and the smallest latencies. We found all these qualities in Equinix.”

Penta started out with a presence in Equinix’s GV1 International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centre in Geneva. The company has also recently expanded into the Equinix DX1 and DX2 facilities in Dubai, UAE. It uses these locations to host its customers’ IT infrastructure and to provide a broad range of managed services.

Direct connections

In addition to its presence at these facilities, Penta uses the wide selection of dedicated links available between the Equinix data centres to connect to its customers’ equipment in other Equinix locations. As Khalilnia says:

“When we want to connect to UK customers who are sited in Equinix’s London facility, for example, we know we can count on the carriers inside Equinix. We get excellent connectivity at a highly competitive price. This direct connection improves resilience, because of redundant connections,” Khalilnia continues. “Also, because it’s a private network, there are a very small number of hops, which means shorter latency. In fact, the average latency from London to Geneva is around 10ms between Equinix data centres, compared to 20 or 25ms on the public internet.”

With 40% of its customers in the financial sector, compliance is an important area for Penta — its services are audited every year by Ernst & Young as part of its ISAE 3402 auditing standards. As Khalilnia explains:

“We give reports to our customers annually to show compliance, for example with the Swiss FINMA regulations, and Equinix provides logs and other records that help us achieve these certifications. Equinix is a well-known name with a good reputation, and this helps reassure our customers because they know they are in good hands.This gives us a competitive advantage. In fact, many of our customers are with Penta because Equinix stands behind us — and we also have leads who are referred to us regularly by Equinix and via the Equinix Marketplace program.”

Only Equinix

In addition to its presence in Geneva and Dubai, Penta also rents a rack from another company in Equinix’s TK1 data centre in Tokyo. Khalilnia commented:

“We’re a global company and Equinix’s worldwide footprint is significant to us. It’s important for us to have a presence where our customers are,” continued Khalilnia. ”Equinix is always our first choice when we expand into a new location. Equinix is professional, has the right certifications and knows how to run data centres,” concluded Khalilnia. “The added value they provide far exceeds any gap in price between Equinix and a low-cost provider.”