Accelerating growth in Asia-Pacific to become the leader in the alternative cloud provider category

Who are they?

Linode is the world’s largest independent cloud provider, helping developers accelerate innovation by making cloud computing simple, affordable, and accessible. As a leading alternative cloud provider to hyperscale computing companies like Amazon Web Services, Linode specializes in serving the needs of developers and small to medium-sized (SMB) organizations looking to reduce complexity and dramatically lower costs

The Challenge

Since its founding, Linode has seen exponential growth and continues to expand into new markets around the world, now serving nearly a million customers across 196 countries and counting.

“As we’ve grown, we’ve seen increased demand in regions across South East Asia, Africa, and Oceania,” said Blair Lyon, VP of Cloud Experience at Linode. “Today we operate four data centers across the Asia Pacific region, and these investments allow our customers to keep their data closer to home and deliver a premium customer experience through our next-generation network.”

While Linode was expanding during this high-growth period, the company faced the challenge of finding a telecommunications partner offering the requisite network strength, scale and product innovation, that could keep pace with their current needs as well as grow with them into the future.

The Solution

Linode found a strong fit in Telstra, whose telecommunications capabilities and network infrastructure met its requirements, including high-performance and low-latency connectivity to support its customers’ modern applications and technologies.

“We’re committed to providing the highest performance, lowest latency, and most reliable infrastructure to help our customers scale up using the cloud,” said Dan Spataro, Linode Director of Infrastructure Operations. “Our strategic partnership with Telstra is instrumental in delivering on that commitment.”

Linode started to engage with Telstra in 2015 as the partner of choice to provide a suite of solutions to connect to new, rapidly growing Asia Pacific markets, including Australia, Singapore and India. This included robust, fast and reliable fiber connectivity (via Telstra’s extensive network of subsea cables) between the United States, Sydney, Singapore and Mumbai, to enable newly established points of presence (PoPs) – also known as local access points – in those markets. Telstra’s solution also included colocation, as well as IP transit services in Singapore and Sydney, to enable direct connectivity and better performance for Linode’s customers in the region.

“There is a strong developer community in the Asia Pacific region that is drawn to Linode’s value proposition of simplicity and price-performance,” said Lyon. “In Australia, our customers are innovating in the cloud, reducing complexity, and driving digital transformation for their organizations. This is made possible through our new data center in Sydney, which we built in partnership with Telstra.”

To further enhance the performance and flexibility of Linode’s cloud offerings, Telstra also introduced an adaptable, software-defined networking solution, Telstra Programmable Network (TPN), along with a network management application T-Connect. TPN has helped future-proof Linode’s network, giving it the ability to turn up network services on-demand, enabling rapid response to seasonal demands, spikes in traffic, and even add resilience and diversity to the network. All of this contributes to better network management for Linode, and ultimately a better experience for its customers. 

“From colocation services to IP transit, private lines and TPN, our relationship has developed into a multi-region, multi-service partnership,” said Spataro. “The team at Telstra worked closely with us to design a future-proof network supported by Telstra’s massive subsea cable infrastructure – which gives us a lot of options in terms of network resiliency, reliability, and redundancy – and the team’s on-the-ground expertise. That means we can continue to deliver innovative alternative cloud services to our customers around the world.”

Key elements of the solution:

• Telstra supported Linode’s growth into and within the Asia Pacific region, as the company realized opportunities in new markets.
• Telstra designed a future-proof network for Linode with multiple, diverse point-to-point private lines and TPN.
• Telstra enhanced Linode’s connectivity between Sydney and Singapore with colocation and IP transit solutions

The Benefits

Linode’s business in Asia Pacific more than doubled between 2018 and 2020, part of which can be attributed to its growth into new markets within the region with Telstra as its telecommunications partner. Telstra’s commercial flexibility has also enabled Linode to stay cost-competitive.

“The economics and performance that Telstra’s underlying network and connectivity bring to our services allow us to offer a simple pricing structure to our customers and lead the alternative cloud provider category.

“Our pricing remains the same for our customers in New Jersey, as it is for customers in Mumbai or Sydney. That makes costs extremely predictable for our customers, which is part of what sets us apart,” said Lyon.

Linode’s business in Asia Pacific is expected to double again by 2023. While much of this additional growth will come from its traditional stronghold in the developer and segments, enterprise multi-cloud deployments will play a larger role in the company’s customer mix in the region.

Key takeaways:

• Increased network capabilities across key regional locations – helping to double Linode’s business in Asia Pacific.
• Enabled a flat pricing strategy – through reliable and predictable connectivity solutions.
• Future-proofed infrastructure – with adaptable software-defined solution TPN.