Equinix to Join EPA ENERGY STAR Program and Support Certification Initiative for Data Centers

Foster City, CA – August 11, 2008 – Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the leading global provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, today announced that it has joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ENERGY STAR^Ò program, and that it has committed to assisting with EPA’s initiative to develop a ratings program to measure, track and improve the energy performance of the nation’s data centers.

The ENERGY STAR program began in 1992 as a voluntary market-based partnership for businesses in all industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency. 

Equinix has agreed to participate in EPA’s data collection initiative aimed at developing a specific ENERGY STAR ratings program to measure, track and improve the overall energy performance of the nation’s data centers.  The goal of the program is to assist data center operators in improving energy efficiency by assessing energy performance using standardized metrics that are simple and can be tracked on a continuous basis. 

To develop the rating system, EPA is collecting data on energy use and operating characteristics from a large number of existing data center operators, including both stand-alone facilities as well as data centers located in offices and other buildings.  Equinix’s participation in the program will include the collection of 12 consecutive months of IT and data center energy use data from June 2008 through June 2009 from a sampling of its U.S. Internet Business Exchange (IBX®) centers.  Participants in the program currently include 150 data center owners and operators, industry associations, and equipment suppliers and consultants. 

While this initiative will focus on the data center infrastructure, such as power and cooling operations, a separate ENERGY STAR specification is being developed to address the energy efficiency of servers typically hosted within a data center and which generally consume as much, or in some cases more, power than the operational infrastructure.  EPA plans to expand the ENERGY STAR program to other data center IT products longer term, including storage and networking equipment.

EPA currently provides an energy performance rating for a wide variety of commercial buildings and plants, allowing operators to compare their performance against a national sample of similar facilities and track changes in energy use over time.  The performance rating system is based on a scale of 1-100, with a rating of 50 indicating that the building, from an energy consumption standpoint, performs better than 50% of all similar buildings nationwide.  A rating of 75 qualifies the building for the ENERGY STAR designation.

“By joining ENERGY STAR, Equinix has made a fundamental commitment to resource conservation through the continuous improvement of energy performance,” said Mike Zatz, manager of EPA's ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings Program.  “We look forward to its participation as we develop the performance metrics for the increasingly important segment of data center facilities and lead the way to greater energy efficiencies.”

“Together with EPA and our industry peers, Equinix is pleased to help develop consistent methods for measuring energy performance as well as sharing industry best practices for operators of large data centers,” said Dave Pickut, chief technology officer for Equinix.  “Equinix has more than 10 years of experience in designing and building some of the most modern data centers in the industry and we believe that we have a lot to offer, as well as a lot to gain, from participating in this initiative.”

Equinix is committed to operating the most efficient data centers in the industry.  The company’s efforts were recently recognized at the Data Centres Europe conference, where Equinix won the “Data Centers Europe Green Award,” and by the Bay Area Green Business Program which “green” certified all four of Equinix’s Silicon Valley IBX centers.  In addition, Equinix has adopted a variety of programs that maximize efficiency of operations, reduce environmental impact and support industry green efforts including: 

• Implementing the most advanced data center design that leverages the efficiencies of scale;
• Working with customers to develop equipment deployments and configurations that maximize efficiency and conservation, including hot-aisle, cold-aisle configurations and separation of supply and exhaust air;
• Harnessing external air temperature with the deployment of water-side heat exchangers and air economizers that cool centers by bringing in outside air when conditions are favorable;
• Using green energy sources, such as Equinix’s four centers in Switzerland which operate on 100% hydropower;
• Aggressively implementing new designs and technologies which take maximum advantage of conservation; and
• Participation in The Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.

About ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR was introduced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 as a voluntary market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency. Today, ENERGY STAR offers businesses and consumers energy-efficient solutions to save energy, money and help protect the environment for future generations. More than 12,000 organizations are ENERGY STAR partners committed to improving the energy efficiency of products, homes, buildings and businesses. Last year alone, Americans with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved $16 billion on their energy bills and reduced greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent to those of 27 million cars.  For more information, visit www.energystar.gov or call toll-free 1-888-STAR-YES (1-888-782-7937).

About Equinix

Equinix is the leading global provider of network-neutral data center and interconnection services, offering premium colocation, traffic exchange and outsourced IT infrastructure solutions.  Global enterprises, content companies, systems integrators and network service providers look to Equinix Internet Business Exchange (IBX®) centers for world-class reliability and network diversity.  Equinix IBX centers serve as critical, core hubs for IP networks and Internet operations worldwide.  With 40 IBX centers located in 18 strategic markets across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Equinix enables customers to reliably operate their mission-critical infrastructure on a global basis.

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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 centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix services; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenue from customers in recently built out  or acquired data centers; 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; the results of any litigation relating to past stock option grants and practices; and other risks described from time to time in Equinix's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see Equinix's recent 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.

Equinix and IBX are registered trademarks of Equinix, Inc. Internet Business Exchange is a trademark of Equinix, Inc.