I first want to acknowledge all the hard work and dedication that I have seen from people throughout our industry to keep our critical infrastructure up and running during these difficult times. We knew how dependent we are on technology and the infrastructure that supports it, but perhaps we underestimated how much we take for granted its resiliency. And now, in these times, we see that infrastructure performing well under stressors.
As CTO at Digital Realty, my team and I have been tracking those stressors closely. In particular, we've been tracking the increased demand amongst customers for expedited interconnections to keep up with the changes in demand from working from home and increased entertainment streaming at home during this crisis.
We see networks getting strained and network performance over internet-based VPN/SDWAN starting to get stressed. We have also seen installs delayed from supply chain issues and reductions in the staffing performing installs. A software-defined solution is key to keeping critical services running with automated interconnection and capacity provisioning.
We want to be part of the solution. I am very pleased to announce that, in partnership with our strategic partner Megaport, we are together launching an offer to help this developing issue. In April, we will waive port fees for new ports on Service Exchange to anyone in the Government, Medical, Emergency Services, and Education verticals for 6 months. This offer will be made available worldwide and enables critical services to connect to over 350 service providers and 167 cloud onramps globally.
Getting and provisioning Service Exchange, powered by Megaport, to those networks is a zero-cost insurance policy for these critical industries. We're committed to doing our part to support the critical organizations keeping us safe.
If these customers need urgent access to clouds, connections among their own multi-national sites, or just additional redundancy during April, then they can utilize their Service Exchange port in seconds. If they end up not needing these ports long term, they can simply cancel at the end of 6 months.
For additional information on this offer, contact your account manager or send us a message at sales@digitalrealty.com
Be safe out there.