Partnership will deliver Cloudflare’s cloud services on Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform in 36 U.S. cities, enabling a new class of low-latency edge-to-core applications

AUSTIN, TX — January 22, 2020 — Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge® platform and Kinetic Edge Exchange™ (KEX), the first fully-integrated hardware and software platform for edge colocation, exchange and networking services, today announced Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) will be rolling out its cloud services on the Kinetic Edge platform, nationwide.

“Cloudflare is a true edge pioneer,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “By offering Cloudflare’s performance and security services through Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform, we will collectively unleash a new generation of applications that demand ultra-low latency and high bandwidth capabilities at the edge of the network. Developers will be able to deploy Cloudflare Workers® to run serverless applications in Kinetic Edge cities, in close proximity to the devices they serve. Together we will drive the Third Act of the Internet, a fundamental re-architecting of how data is created, ingested, processed and routed at the outermost edges of the Internet.”

36 Markets by 2021

Also announced today, Vapor IO completed its Series C financing, raising a total of $90 million to build out its Kinetic Edge platform in 36 U.S. markets by the end of 2021. The company’s Kinetic Edge platform is already live in Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Dallas, and the company is building out an additional 16 multi-site cities in 2020.

The first 36 cities to feature the Kinetic Edge platform are (in alphabetical order): Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. 

“Vapor IO has an aggressive rollout plan that spans the entire U.S.,” said Nitin Rao, Head of Global Infrastructure at Cloudflare. “Our mission is to help build a better Internet and our customers demand from us the most performant platform with a consistent experience across geographies. By partnering with Vapor IO, we’re able to deliver the benefits of our edge computing platform, Cloudflare Workers, to a wide array of new locations.” 

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest carriers, operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.

Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved. 

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) is on a mission to help build a better Internet. Cloudflare’s platform protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare have all web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures 2018 list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2019. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Cloudflare has offices in Austin, TX, Champaign, IL, New York, NY, San Jose, CA, Seattle, WA, Washington, D.C., Lisbon, London, Munich, Beijing, Singapore, and Sydney.

Berkshire Partners and Crown Castle fund an accelerated coast-to-coast deployment of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge. With 20 cities underway, the company maintains its position as the nation’s largest provider of interconnected edge facilities.

AUSTIN, TX — January 22, 2020 — Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge® platform and Kinetic Edge Exchange™ (KEX), the first nationwide platform for edge colocation and networking services, today announced an additional investment by private equity firm Berkshire Partners and Crown Castle, bringing its aggregate Series C funding to $90 million. The latest tranche of funding will accelerate the company’s build-out of its coast-to-coast Kinetic Edge platform. 

“The Third Act of the Internet requires that we build out edge computing infrastructure as quickly as possible,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “By deploying Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge exchange, colocation, and networking services in the top U.S. markets, we provide a platform to deliver low-latency edge capabilities at the intersection of the wireline and wireless networks. With a total of 36 multi-site markets coming online over the next 24 months, we expect to be the largest provider of edge colocation, edge networking, and edge exchange services in close proximity to the last mile networks.”

Already deployed in Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Dallas, the company has another 16 markets in pre-construction, most of which it expects to build out in 2020. The company plans to deliver its Kinetic Edge platform to the top 36 U.S. metropolitan markets by the end of 2021.

Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform is a fully-integrated system of edge colocation, networking, and exchange services that operates at city-scale in key metropolitan regions. The Kinetic Edge uses custom data centers, dedicated fiber, and networking services to deliver a complete solution for infrastructure edge computing.

The nation’s largest carriers, cloud providers, CDNs, web-scale companies, and innovative private enterprises place their compute, storage, and networking technologies in Kinetic Edge locations, which are strategically located near the existing wired and wireless access networks, including emerging 5G wireless networks. Vapor IO’s unique edge architecture creates city-sized logical data centers by combining geographically dispersed micro data centers into a single fabric on a metropolitan basis, allowing its customers to operate servers in locations that are closest to the access networks, near the end users and devices to enable the next generation of applications and services.

The Kinetic Edge Exchange and Digital Realty

In November, Vapor IO announced its Kinetic Edge Exchange (KEX) service, the world’s first software-defined system for interconnection in edge locations. The company also announced a multi-city deployment with Digital Realty, a leading global provider of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. By deploying the Kinetic Edge Exchange on PlatformDIGITAL™, the companies make it possible for customers to build new distributed workflows spanning dynamically from core to edge.

20 Markets Underway; 36 Markets by 2021

Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge is deployed in Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Dallas. The company has also begun pre-construction activities in 16 additional markets and has plans to deploy its coast-to-coast Kinetic Edge platform in a total of 36 markets by the end of 2021.

“Vapor IO has the key ingredients to deliver critical edge computing infrastructure to the top U.S. metropolitan markets,” said Josh Johnson, principal at Berkshire Partners. “We believe they have the technology, expertise, and access to the required land and fiber to build a nationwide footprint. We’re excited to partner with Vapor IO as they deploy fully-integrated edge solutions that improve performance, reduce costs and enable new applications for their customers.”

The first 20 cities to feature the Kinetic Edge platform are (in alphabetical order): Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. 

Nationwide Partnership with Cloudflare

Vapor IO also today announced a nationwide partnership with Cloudflare. As part of this partnership, Cloudflare will roll out its cloud services via the Kinetic Edge platform across 36 U.S. cities. This partnership will unleash a new class of applications, giving developers the power to run serverless functions through the Kinetic Edge platform, in close proximity to end users and devices, using Cloudflare Workers® as well as extending Cloudflare’s security, performance, and reliability services even farther out at the edge.

What is the Kinetic Edge Platform?

By placing IT equipment on the Kinetic Edge platform, companies enable a new class of applications that depend on low latency Internet services near the devices that utilize them. Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform is the first integrated system that delivers the fundamental infrastructure services required to deliver edge native applications. Kinetic Edge services include:

• Kinetic Edge Colocation: Kinetic Edge Colocation offers customers the ability to place compute, storage and networking equipment in close proximity to the last mile networks, making it possible to deliver low-latency edge services. The Kinetic Edge services utilize Vapor IO’s patent-protected enclosure systems, which feature the proprietary Vapor Chamber and Vapor Edge Modules, which are carrier neutral facilities designed with multiple layers of physical and logical security appropriate for a multi-tenant facility. Multiple colocation sites in any one Kinetic Edge city can be treated as availability zones for resilience delivered via high availability software techniques, such as those available with Kubernetes.
• Kinetic Edge Networking: Networking on the Kinetic Edge platform is provided by the Kinetic Edge Fabric, a combination of physical fiber networks across each Kinetic Edge city. The fabric offers granular software-defined controls to create the network infrastructure needed for each customer or application on top of a flexible foundation. The Kinetic Edge Portal lets customers create real-time, virtual private networks that span multiple data centers across the city.
• Kinetic Edge Exchange (KEX): Edge meet-me rooms and the software-defined Kinetic Edge Exchange services provide interconnection and data exchange capabilities at every Kinetic Edge location, making it easy for networks on the Kinetic Edge platform to cross-connect via the Kinetic Edge Portal, gaining high-speed access to last-mile networks, regional data centers, metropolitan aggregation points and interconnection centers, as well as public cloud and private data centers.

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge colocation and edge exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest wireless carriers, cable operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform delivers the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.

Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.

Digital Realty and Vapor IO form alliance to offer an Edge-to-Core continuum in multiple US cities, starting with Chicago and Atlanta

AUSTIN – October 30, 2019 – Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge™ platform and the leading provider of edge colocation, edge interconnection and edge networking services, today announced the Kinetic Edge Exchange (KEX), the world’s first software-defined system for interconnection in edge locations. The KEX allows network operators, application developers, content providers and other Kinetic Edge users to cross-connect in edge meet-me rooms, making it easy and cost-effective to peer and exchange data in close proximity to the last mile wireless and wireline networks. Vapor IO’s KEX will first be deployed in Chicago and Atlanta with Digital Realty, a leading global provider of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions.

“The Internet requires a new way to interconnect networks at the edge because edge applications demand an order-of-magnitude reduction in latency over the status quo,” said Cole Crawford, Founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “The Kinetic Edge Exchange delivers this capability on demand. Until today, automated software-defined interconnection was not available at the edge, making it difficult or impossible for enterprises to deploy edge applications at scale. The Kinetic Edge Exchange offers a neutral host platform for exchanging data at the edge, making it possible to speed up internet traffic, reduce backhaul congestion and deliver low-latency services in a 5G world.”

The Third Act of the Internet

The Kinetic Edge and the KEX are the centerpieces of the internet’s third act. Originally, the internet was built as a global “network of networks”. This was the first act, and during the 2000s this model gave way to the increasing regionalization of the internet through CDNs and localized infrastructure. Today, that second act is concluding and the third act is emerging as the need for low latency, reduced backhaul network loading and overall higher performance requirements are driving a new, highly local tier of internet infrastructure enabled by edge data centers at the very edge of the last mile network.

An example application which benefits from the KEX is the use of autonomous drones for public safety. Autonomous drones need very low-latency connectivity back to an array of cloud services, all of which can be present at the Kinetic Edge. These drones can also generate large volumes of traffic, such as 4K streaming video. With the KEX, the exchange services needed to support these emerging use cases occur at the edge of the last mile network, all at a fraction of the latency and backhaul cost of traditional, non-edge based approaches to traffic exchange. 

Core-to-Edge with Digital Realty

Digital Realty and Vapor IO have formed an alliance to deploy Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge Exchange in Digital Realty’s centers of data exchange campuses. These campuses are an ideal meeting place to extend connections to the edge, making possible new distributed workflows spanning from core to edge to scale digital business.

This unified solution implements the Kinetic Edge SDN fabric to connect and coordinate traffic exchange between the Digital Realty campus and Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge deployments. As a result, endpoint workloads computed at the Kinetic Edge are passed to the Digital Realty Campus to connect to upstream workflow processing, data analysis and retention.

“Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge Exchange complements our global data center platform, allowing our customers to extend their centers of data to the edge,” said Digital Realty CTO Chris Sharp. “By enabling the end points where data is created to fully participate in distributed workflows, Vapor IO and Digital Realty unlock new possibilities for enterprises, service providers and hyper-scale customers to deliver edge services and scale digital businesses globally.”

How the KEX Works

Moving data on the internet requires many networks to cross-connect and exchange traffic. Traffic exchanges are where networks come together and trade data, often through a business relationship called “peering.” By making it easy to exchange data, application developers, content providers and network operators can optimize routes and deliver better, more predictable user experiences. 

Tenants of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge colocation platform can interconnect with one another using virtual and physical Meet-Me Room (MMR) capabilities provided by the Kinetic Edge Exchange. The Kinetic Edge Fabric that underlies the KEX provides a software-defined network that makes it easy for Vapor IO partners and customers to establish peering or other traffic exchange relationships with each other. All of the virtual cross connects can be controlled via software, which allows users to rapidly adapt to changing business requirements using automation.

For more information on the Kinetic Edge Exchange, please visit the Vapor IO Kinetic Edge Exchange product page and connect with the product team at @VaporIO on Twitter.

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge colocation and edge exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest wireless carriers, cable operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform delivers the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Pittsburgh with plans to roll out the top 30 US markets with 100+ sites over the next two years. Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.

About Digital Realty

Digital Realty supports the data center, colocation and interconnection strategies of customers across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, ranging from cloud and information technology services, communications and social networking to financial services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and consumer products.  To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

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Media contact:

For Vapor IO:
Jessica Gomez-Rees
Publicity Inc.
[email protected]
415-889-7444

For Digital Realty:
Marc Musgrove
Digital Realty
[email protected]
415-508-2812

The company’s Kinetic Edge delivers the next generation internet, bringing cloud-like services to the edge of the wireless network

AUSTIN – June 5, 2019 – Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge™ and the leading provider of tower-connected edge colocation services, today announced the company has been named the Edge Innovation Award winner at the 2019 Datacloud Awards Ceremony in Monaco.  The annual awards showcase the most innovative companies, products and people globally influencing the digital infrastructure, data center, cloud, edge and hyperscale industries. Vapor IO won the 2019 Edge Innovation award for delivering superior user experience in connectivity and interconnections for edge data centers. Judge accolades cite the company’s Kinetic Edge as delivering the innovative, ultra-high scale connectivity demanded by today’s cloud users.

The Kinetic Edge combines software and high-speed connectivity to mesh together multiple micro data centers so they behave as a single logical data center. For developers and operators, it presents a geographically-dispersed collection of micro data centers as if they were within a single facility with multiple availability zones. With locations planned for all major US metro areas, Vapor IO is the leading partner for production-scale edge computing. The company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, IL and has plans to have projects underway in the top 30 US markets with over 100 sites.

“Vapor IO is reinventing the last mile network at the intersection of the wired and wireless world,” said Cole Crawford, CEO of Vapor IO. “We are proud to offer a solution that enables spectrum owners,  cloud providers, CDNs, web scale companies and other innovative enterprises to place IT equipment in Kinetic Edge locations and interconnect through software. The Kinetic Edge platform optimizes bi-directional traffic from edge to core, providing unfettered low-latency access to the existing 4G LTE and emerging 5G wireless networks.”

Vapor IO also recently launched the Kinetic Edge Alliance (KEA), an industry alliance of leading software, hardware, networking and integration companies committed to driving the broad adoption of compute, storage, access and interconnection at the edge of the cellular network, simplifying edge computing for the masses. The Kinetic Edge Alliance combines critical infrastructure deployments with enabling edge technologies and expertise. Targeting the top 30 US metro markets which cover nearly 50% of the US population, the Alliance seeks to establish critical mass for nationwide edge computing.

For more about Vapor IO and its solutions, please visit www.vapor.io

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge colocation and interconnection platform at the edge of the wireless network. Serving the world’s largest wireless carriers, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge delivers the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure at the edge of the wireless network. The company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, IL, and has plans to have projects underway in the top 20 US markets with 100+ sites by 2020. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.

Media contact:
Publicity.Inc
Jessica Rees
(415) 889-7444
[email protected]

Founder and CEO of Vapor IO joins The LF Edge Governing Board, helping to accelerate edge computing through standardizing around open source efforts

AUSTIN, Texas – May 7, 2019 –  Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge™ and the leading provider of tower-connected edge colocation and interconnection services, today announced that The Linux Foundation has appointed Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO, as an LF Edge General Member Board Representative. LF Edge is an umbrella organization within The Linux Foundation working to establish open, interoperable frameworks for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud or operating system.

“The Linux Foundation has been the gold standard for collaborative open source projects, and I’m excited to see LF Edge bring those capabilities to the edge computing ecosystem,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “The founding projects in LF Edge have already garnered substantial followings, and The Linux Foundation’s open source governance model will help standardize deployments that leverage edge computing. I’m thrilled to be joining the board and look forward to serving the community.”

Accelerating Standards for Edge Computing

LF Edge organizes complementary edge computing projects and helps them speed up industry adoption through collaboration and open source governance. LF Edge comprises five anchor projects: Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, the Open Glossary of Edge Computing, the Home Edge Project, and Project EVE. Vapor IO is a founding member of LF Edge and continues to be a lead contributor to the Open Glossary of Edge Computing.

“It’s an honor to have Cole Crawford join the LF Edge Governing Board,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “Our goal is to establish a unified open source framework for the edge, and Cole’s background and work at Vapor IO makes him a valued member of the team.”

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 About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge colocation and interconnection platform at the edge of the wireless cellular network. Serving the world’s largest wireless carriers, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge delivers the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure at the edge of the wireless network. The company has plans to bring the Kinetic Edge to over 100 cities and is now deploying to its first six metropolitan markets, including Chicago, IL, the company’s flagship deployment.

PR Contact

Heather Fitzsimmons, Mindshare PR
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(650) 279-4360