Case Study: SoftLayer achieves low-latency, secure global connectivity with Digital Realty

Softlayer Recognizes Hard Business Benefits With Digital Realty Colocation and Interconnection

SoftLayer, an IBM company, is a global Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider that manages hundreds of thousands of devices and thousands of servers for customers worldwide. Facing rapid growth, SoftLayer needed to expand its footprint and establish Points of Presence in seven strategic U.S. markets (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Jose). The core challenge was finding partners that offered premium colocation plus extensive interconnection to multiple network providers so SoftLayer could bring services closer to customers while maintaining security, performance and cost flexibility.

SoftLayer selected Digital Realty for cloud colocation and connectivity, deploying networking gear, VPN gateways and DNS servers in each POP to create an owned, private network that avoids the public Internet. The deployment delivered lower latency (sub‑40 ms and in some cases sub‑25 ms), improved security and redundancy, routed DNS resilience, faster time-to-market by compressing builds across seven cities, and an enterprise-grade offering at competitive pricing — all of which translated into better application performance and higher reliability for SoftLayer customers.

Softlayer

George Karidis

Chief Strategy Officer