WISE Employment selects Equinix to transform its IT infrastructure and enhance support for job seekers with a disability

SYDNEY, Australia – December 14, 2020 — Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the world’s digital infrastructure company, is today announcing that it has supported WISE Employment to transform its IT infrastructure leveraging Telstra’s mobile network. Through this deployment, WISE Employment is able to achieve 100% mobility, enhance services for customers and reduce data centre expenses and management. The Australian NGO also has managed to reduce power cost by 20% and save A$5 million over a five-year period.

Australians with a disability are twice as likely to be unemployed compared to those who do not have a disability.¹ As COVID-19 pushes Australia’s unemployment rate to a reported 6.9%², WISE Employment’s services’ mission holds new urgency.

With over 160 offices and 1,000 employees across the country, WISE Employment seeks to empower job seekers regardless of their needs or location – including establishing pop-up recruitment offices, building job websites and fostering in-house development capabilities for better customer support. However, the organisation’s flexibility was limited by its complex IT infrastructure in a mix of in-house data centres located in four different locations, requiring significant labour and resources to manage different environments.

By leveraging Equinix’s digital infrastructure in Melbourne and Telstra’s mobile network, WISE Employment has built a highly available environment that enables its staff to set up and connect offices within two hours and put a person to work within 10 minutes. This also equips its employees to support job seekers 24/7 and allows them to devote more time to serving their customers – an important capability as Australia works to rebuild its economy and job market. 

Highlights / Key Facts

• WISE Employment is an Australian not-for-profit organisation providing employment services under government disability and jobs programs. These free services have helped more than 10,000 Australians find and keep meaningful employment while supporting employers to recruit the right staff and attract talent from diverse backgrounds.

• Working with Equinix and Telstra, WISE Employment has transformed its IT environment in ways that benefit both job seekers and its own employees. First, it consolidated its data centres into a single Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX^®) in Melbourne, creating a 20% savings in power and providing secure access to crucial ecosystems.

• To build interconnection further, WISE Employment creates a hybrid cloud environment by privately and securely connecting to Amazon Web Service (AWS) via Equinix Fabric™ using Telstra mobile network. Equinix Fabric is an on-demand, SDN-enabled interconnection service that allows any business to connect between its own or other company’s distributed infrastructure on Platform Equinix^®. This simplified network architecture helps WISE Employment achieve cost savings of nearly $5 million over a five-year period, along with improved interconnectivity and data centre capacity management.

• Equinix's IBX data centres in Melbourne are part of Platform Equinix that spans all six of Australia's top markets and 63 metros worldwide. The ME1 and ME2 IBX facilities connect directly to the Victorian Internet Exchange (VIC-IX), multiple network providers and the Australia Singapore Cable (ASC). Vendor-agnostic, Platform Equinix offers rich interconnection opportunities with IT, network and cloud providers via Equinix Fabric.

• Equinix's global platform currently includes more than 220 data centres across 63 metros. In Asia-Pacific, Equinix’s data centre footprint spans across key metros in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore.

Quotes

• Mick Havill, Chief Information Officer, WISE Employment
  “At WISE Employment, our passionate staff assist thousands of job seekers in finding meaningful work and establishing self-sufficiency. Our partnership with Equinix and Telstra is just one example of how we’re working to empower our job seekers. By achieving 100% mobility and saving millions of dollars and internal labour, we’re spending more time working with customers one-on-one, collaborating with community partners and developing innovative projects that support people with disability.”

• Steve Parrish, Telstra Enterprise
  “The benefits WISE Employment has achieved – from 24/7 customer support to significant cost savings – illustrate the strength of Telstra’s network and the value of finding the right IT partners. We’re excited to have partnered with WISE Employment in their mission to support Australian job seekers with disabilities and help cultivate more diverse, inclusive workplaces across Australia.”

• Guy Danskine, Managing Director, Equinix Australia
  “WISE Employment provides services that will be even more crucial as Australia embarks on its post-pandemic recovery. This is a major transformation project and reflects the organisation’s deep commitment to continuously finding ways to help Australians with a disability build their careers. At Equinix, diversity, inclusion and belonging are foundational to our values. We’re proud to support WISE Employment and believe its new mobility, flexibility and cost savings are a testament to the power of investing in digital capability and infrastructure.”

Additional Resources

• WISE Employment Equinix [video]
• Equinix Fabric datasheet [website]

About Equinix
Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world’s digital infrastructure company, enabling digital leaders to harness a trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. Equinix enables today’s businesses to access all the right places, partners and possibilities they need to accelerate advantage. With Equinix, they can scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX data centres and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix products and solutions, unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenues from customers in recently built out or acquired data centres; a failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; risks related to our taxation as a REIT; and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

###

Media Contacts (Asia-Pacific)
Annie Ho
Equinix
+852 2970 7761
annho@ap.equinix.com

Media Contact (Australia)
Lauren Clancy
Howorth Communications
+61 416 860 704
lauren@howorth.com.au