Equinix Study: Software-Defined Networking Cuts Provisioning from 32 Hours to 4

What the Forrester study measured

Equinix commissioned Forrester Consulting to produce the Total Economic Impact study of Equinix Networking Solutions. It is based on interviews with four decision-makers at organizations that recently adopted software-defined networking. Forrester built a composite organization from their responses to estimate the financial effects over three years.

According to the interviews, provisioning infrastructure manually took 32 hours of network engineering work per instance. Deploying connections through an automated portal took 4 hours, an 86% reduction. The study says this saves roughly 28 hours of work for each instance.

Assuming 50 instances provisioned annually, the composite organization would save about $360,000 in labor costs over three years.

Why legacy provisioning clashes with AI demands

Equinix argues that enterprise AI has exposed the limits of internet-based connectivity and MPLS networks. Traditional deployment requires coordinating with providers, procuring hardware and performing physical installation, and a carrier circuit turn-up can take weeks. When organizations want to spin up new GPUs in hours, they do not want to wait weeks or months for MPLS circuits, the company says.

Study respondents described a lack of agility whenever they needed to adjust the network quickly, for example to connect with an emerging AI provider. Equinix calls legacy provisioning "a fixed tax that comes due every time the network needs to change."

The company also lists uses for faster connections: reaching cloud providers in specific locations to expand into new markets while meeting sovereignty requirements, connecting to GPU as a Service providers, accessing new model providers, and linking to technology partners.

Savings from circuits and bandwidth

The study puts average annual savings at $12,000 for each MPLS connection replaced with a software-defined one. The composite organization added 120 connections in Year 1, 140 in Year 2 and 160 in Year 3. The share of those that were software-defined rose from 20% to 40% to 60%. Over three years, the study found total network infrastructure costs fell by $1.5 million.

Bandwidth is the third source of savings. The composite organization's average unused capacity on each physical connection was 30%. Software-defined networking allows dynamic scaling: capacity rises to meet peak demand and drops afterward. The study found this saved $1.1 million over three years.

• Faster provisioning: $360,000 saved
• Replacing MPLS circuits: $1.5 million saved
• Dynamic bandwidth scaling: $1.1 million saved

Equinix attributes all three to the use of Equinix Fabric for on-demand, easily scaled software-defined interconnection.

New products and what it means

Equinix says software-defined connectivity underpins Equinix Connected Cloud, its neutral digital infrastructure for connecting to clouds, networks, AI providers and ecosystem partners. The same foundation supports two newly announced solutions. Equinix Fabric One can automatically build a network aligned to business goals, rather than requiring manual re-architecture. Equinix Inference Exchange is meant to help stand up AI inference in days rather than months and is pre-connected to clouds and AI platforms. Both are in preview, with general availability scheduled for early 2027.

The figures come from a vendor-commissioned study of four interviewees and a modeled composite organization, so actual results will vary with a company's number of connections and how much of its network moves to software-defined links. For network teams, the study's main argument is that provisioning time and unused bandwidth can be quantified costs, and that engineers freed from manual circuit work can shift to higher-value infrastructure and transformation projects.