What is Equinix Messaging Gateway?

 

Equinix Messaging Gateway (EMG) is a message and event-driven solution offered by Equinix to customers which internally leverages Equinix Public APIs. EMG leverages queuing solutions to enable ordering/ticketing transactions and business notifications for customers. The core value proposition for the message-driven interface is its scalability, security & simplicity.

 

EMG is suitable for customers who:

• You have to provision a messaging queue that can receive messages in JSON format.
• You have valid Equinix user credentials.
• You have valid authorization to access the developer portal.
• You have configured Equinix Queue connection details in your system.
• You have authorized permissions for orders and notifications by your Master Administrator.

 

 

Workflows Supported by Equinix Messaging Gateway

 

1. Order Management / Transactional Workflows:

• Create/Update/Cancel Order - BreakFix, SmartHands, Shipments, WorkVisit
• Order Status & 2Way Communication Notifications

 

2. Equinix Notifications / Non-Transactional Workflows:

• Network Notifications - Equinix Fabric Port Up/Down Notifications
• Equinix DataCenter Notifications - DataCenter Planned/Unplanned Maintenance & Incidents
• Billing Notifications - Order is Closed & Billing is started by Equinix

 

 

How does Equinix Messaging Gateway work?

 

Customer Onboarding

1. When a customer is on-boarded, they are provided with a unique customer identifier, which must be included in each message sent to Equinix. Along with the identifier, Equinix and customer will also exchange the queue details.  

 

 

2. Customer & Equinix will generate public-private key pair & exchange the public keys (pkcs8). Customer must use its private key to sign each message sent to Equinix.  Once the message is received, Equinix will use the customer’s public key to verify the message. Similarly, Equinix will sign each message sent to the customer. On receiving the message, customer will use Equinix public key to verify the message.

 

 

3. The customer must work with their CSM and Master Administrators to get access to Equinix Developer Platform and generate a Consumer Key (Client ID) and Consumer Secret (Client Secret). This Consumer Key and Secret must be generated for a user who has access to all customer assets and permission to submit tickets with Equinix. The Consumer Key and Secret must then be shared with Equinix when configuring EMG.

 

 

Message Format

All incoming and outgoing messages between Equinix and the customer will have the following components. Refer to the How to guide section for more details on request, response & notifications messages for individual order & workflow.

 

​Task

• Header attributes
• Body

Signature

 

 

Message skeleton

 

 

 

Equinix Messaging Gateway Workflow

 

A) Order Management / Transactional Workflow

 

The following diagram illustrates a high-level workflow of how EMG works using Microsoft Azure Service Bus messaging for order related workflow:

 

 

 

Step 1  - Customers places an order to Equinix by creating a message based on a pre-agreed format.

 

Step 2  - The message is pushed into an Equinix owned queue.

 

Step 3  - Equinix reads the queue and processes the request.

 

Step 4  - Once the message is processed. Equinix creates a response message. 

 

Step 5  - The response message will be pushed into a customer outgoing queue.

 

Step 6  - The customer processes the incoming message. 

 

 

B) Equinix Notification / Non-Transactional Workflow

 

The following diagram illustrates a high-level workflow of how EMG works using Microsoft Azure Service Bus messaging for Equinix notifications for non-transactional workflow:

 

Step 1  - Equinix IT Systems & Services monitors Equinix DataCenter. They trigger internal alerts for planned & unplanned maintenance and incidents. 

 

Step 2  - Once the message is processed. Equinix creates a notification message with details of the maintenance & incident. The response message will be pushed into a customer outgoing queue.

 

Step 3  - The customer processes the incoming message.