Zayo to Expand Miami Data Center, Home to Florida Internet Exchange

zColo, the data center services subsidiary of Zayo Group, is expanding its Miami data center, home to the Florida Internet Exchange, which Zayo formed together with Netflix and south Florida data center service provider Host.net.

With 15 network carriers in the facility, the Miami data center is a robust interconnection hub. Miami in general is an important tier-two US data center market and a network connectivity gateway between the US and Latin American markets.

The biggest carrier hotel in the city is NAP of the Americas, owned by Verizon. Zayo’s facility connects to the big data center, which Verizon gained through its acquisition of Terremark in 2011.

According to Zayo, demand for capacity in its data center has been high, and most of the available inventory in the facility, which was launched 18 months ago, has been leased.

Netflix and other major web content and cloud service providers have been a major force behind new interconnection initiatives, such as FL-IX. New peering exchanges in big markets give them additional options for delivering their content to users in those markets besides the biggest exchanges controlled and operated commercially by a handful of data center providers, such as Equinix, Telx, or Verizon.

The biggest such initiative in recent years was the formation of Open-IX, an organization that certifies internet exchanges and data centers that can host them. The internet’s biggest content providers – Google, Netflix, and Akamai, among others – formed Open-IX to stimulate creation of distributed internet exchanges that stretch over multiple data centers in a metro. By increasing their peering options, these content companies lower the cost of delivering content to users.