In a recent press release, Launch of Cloud Exchange brings Equinix’s investment in Ireland to more than €18.5M, the concepts of an exchange to better serve end-users comes through loud and clear. Unfortunately, although Equinix is on the right path, this solution is not the entire answer. Being a conduit for multi cloud service providers is great if you simply want to list the best prices for infrastructure. To have a real exchange, however, both sides of the market-supply and demand-need to function efficiently. In other words, a real exchange is a price discovery mechanism. For the participants to grasp the full power of a centralized and on-demand exchange, it is essential to allow both the buying and selling of compute resources in a standardized manner, where consistently in unit and product offering measurement is possible. Here, UCX is the answer.
The Equinix’s of the world deserve credit as they seem to be working towards the right conclusion, but the ultimate answer will be an open, transparent marketplace. Cloud utilization has already been commoditized. The Equinix model demonstrates this along with thousands of other new Fintech companies around the world. What the market needs is a centralized, two-sided spot marketplace. We are witnessing the inevitable evolution of compute resources traded as a simple commodity. Much like the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, crude oil or electricity, UCX, and the markets we are creating, is the solution. The time is now!