WAN Geography Benchmark

Looking to move data centers to get closer to cloud service providers? Assessing the best locations to optimize carrier PoP coverage, connectivity, and cost? Run a WAN Geography Benchmark before you buy.

A WAN Geography benchmark is your personalized cloud and WAN compass. This bespoke tool helps users optimize their network architecture for the cloud.

Why Benchmark?

When it comes to selecting data centers and carriers to support a WAN, there are two major challenges:

• Scale: You know you want to move to a data center that houses cloud providers. But there are over 4,000 data centers to consider. And hundreds of carriers-some you might have heard of, while other well-connected options are under your radar.

• Competing Priorities: A lot goes into selecting the right data center. Perhaps proximity to your office is most important. But you also want a data center that is wellconnected with lots of carriers and cloud providers. You also need to make sure the cost per bit is low.

Our methodology ranks each data center based on your priorities and illustrates how they stack up against one another. The final deliverable paints a clear picture of which data center is best for each of your offices.

How We Do It

This tool is powered by our extensive research into the geography of carrier PoP locations, data centers, cloud regions and on-ramps, and global bandwidth pricing. We tailor these datasets to match specific corporate network footprints and provide data-driven rankings of providers in a custom report.

First, we collect information on your office locations and preferences:

• Addresses of office locations you want to connect

• Minimum number of cloud providers and carriers you'd like to see at a data center

• Names of preferred cloud providers and carriers

Next, we run your preferences through our databases of over 3 million data points to create a ranked list of data centers and carriers that match your profile.

Here's what you can expect from the deliverable:

• A ranked list of data centers matching your profile for each one of your offices.

• Customizable ranking tools. What's most important to you in a data center: distance from an office, number of carriers present, richness of cloud provider connectivity, or price? Assign importance to each factor to see how your rankings change.

• A full list of cloud access providers and exchanges present at your chosen geographies.

• Details on other data centers that fall outside your selected criteria.

• A full list of carriers at recommended data centers.

These include your preferred vendors and other wellconnected options you may have missed.

The WAN Geography Benchmark links seamlessly to the Cloud and WAN Infrastructure and Data Center Research Service. Your WAN Geography Benchmark subscription includes access to both services.