Interview: DE-CIX Türkiye Regional Director Bülent Şen Explained the Advantages of the Business Partner Program

The world’s leading Internet Exchange (IX) operator DE-CIX’s Türkiye Regional Director Bülent Şenexplains the advantages of interconnection services for businesses and the Business Partner Program, which it recently announced has expanded and restructured.

Could you tell us about the services and solutions that DE-CIX develops and offers globally or locally in Turkey?

“As DE-CIX, beyond matching services through our Internet Exchange Points (IX), we develop and offer interconnection services to businesses in many different sectors to meet their needs.

DE-CIX offers premium network connectivity services and manages multiple Internet Exchange Points with over 50 carriers and data center agnostics worldwide. We offer this service in more than 100 countries around the world in a wide range of metro markets; Istanbul is one of these Internet Exchange Points. As at our other exchange points, we provide services to network operators (carriers), internet service providers (ISPs), content providers (CDNs) and many different institutions and businesses of all sizes through Istanbul. Today, cloud performance, which may change from time to time, is a very critical process for business life. Because in general, access to clouds occurs via the public internet. DE-CIX’s plug-and-play direct cloud connection, which offers access to more than 50 cloud providers, is the ideal way to increase cloud performance or simplify cloud architecture.

I can say that one of our standout services is our highly effective solutions in cloud migration. Especially today, we have cloud exchange and cloud router services that support the hybrid multi-cloud strategy of institutions. We also offer a range of interconnection services on the application side. Interconnection services on the application side are extremely important as they are indispensable applications in both our private and business lives today.

Additionally, we are proud to support users of Microsoft SaaS Services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Azure Matching Service (MAPS). “Customers can benefit from benefits such as low latency and high bandwidth, and with the cooperation of Microsoft, they also gain a service that offers excellent network connectivity to both institutions and end users.”

What might be the most important problem you see when talking about digitalization in Turkey?

“From the perspective of both the IT world and businesses serving in all sectors, one of the most important agenda items is the rapid increase in data traffic all over the world and the implementation of much more sophisticated applications. The quality and speed of the content reaching the users and the ability to transfer the content in the safest way against network attacks.

The issue of data collection and therefore data management comes to the fore in these sophisticated applications developed by businesses that want to deliver the best service and product to their customers. At this point, it is a fact that high ‘delay’ is unacceptable. One of DE-CIX’s prominent approaches to minimize the delay factor and keep control of the path the data follows throughout its journey is CUG (Closed User Group) – that is, Closed User Group service. As DE-CIX, we offer Closed User Group service as a virtual connection ecosystem specific to the security demands and compliance requirements of a single institution regarding interconnection. With this service, institutions do not lose milliseconds on a longer route and also have the shortest possible path in data travel. If manufacturers or businesses create their own closed and secure private ecosystem within the existing IX (Internet Exchange Point) environment, the geographical distance to other networks and therefore latency is minimized, flexibility is achieved and businesses can benefit from this with a significant increase in the security of their networks and therefore their data. Of course, as a highly automated, highly efficient and effective solution, the costs of institutions also decrease.”

What is on DE-CIX’s agenda as of 2024?

“As of March, we have expanded and restructured the long-standing DE-CIX Partner Program to include corporate partners. The program will now be called ‘R3’ (R cubed) in reference to the Resell-Refer-Reach concepts. The program has now expanded to include not only traditional wholesale partners and resellers, but also Managed Service Providers (MSPs), systems integrators and IT consultancies. The program is ideal for companies looking for key resources, support and collaboration opportunities.

Over the last three years, our partner ecosystem has grown and incorporated new types of partnerships. The most exciting new feature and advantage that partners can see in the renewed program is that we now reward partner loyalty and commitment beyond revenue. Numbers are important, too, but we also want to reward our partner’s commitment when it comes to activities such as case study creation, training participation, or participation in our product development process. This is extremely exciting because it will help organizations among our newer, smaller partners climb the ladder much faster to more attractive commercial terms.

This service for our business partners includes DE-CIX DirectCLOUD Service, which offers not only peering but also connectivity to more than 50 cloud providers, Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS), virtual and highly scalable DE-CIX Cloud ROUTER and virtual private including point-to-point connections.”

What are your regional goals here?

“DE-CIX and DE-CIX’s hundreds of partners around the world offer a model for future data flow organization. Carrier and data center independent; These include offering a wider geographical coverage of interconnection infrastructure through a distributed ecosystem and a variety of scalable and customizable interconnection services to support all areas of digital transformation across industries. All of this can only be achieved through the power of digital ecosystems like the ones developed around DE-CIX’s data center and carrier agnostic Internet Exchange Points.

As DE-CIX, we are already working on our contribution to the digital future vision both regionally and globally. If we want the inclusive internet of the future to work and succeed, we will need alliances and collaborations from a wide range of companies in the internet industry and participants across the value chain. Delay, which we consider to be one of the most important issues, should be kept as low as possible. This means that digital infrastructures such as networks, data centers and interconnection platforms will need to be intensively built out across the board.

Türkiye has the geography and economy to be the true digital hub of the region. Türkiye is the next major base, where we see very high potential. Turkey is a crossroads in Asia towards Europe in data transfer to serve a wide region; I see it in the role of hosting applications, content and cloud resources, and I think it is in an extremely important strategically regional position. Therefore, considering its central location, it is possible to say that in a scenario where data traffic operates through Turkey, Turkey’s opportunities in terms of economic development will increase and its power in the region will rise.”

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