IaaS provider LayerHost simplifies path for Asia companies expanding overseas

Mohamad Kazah, LayerHost’s founder, was a pioneer in game server hosting in the early 2000s. Recognizing the next growth opportunity, he evolved the company to offer data center services.

LayerHost serves as an unofficial gateway of communications traffic between the U.S. and Asia, with fast, low-latency transit connections between continents. A flexible Juniper network allowed LayerHost to pivot to an emerging opportunity while leveraging its existing investments.

“Juniper puts the customer first,” Kazah says. “That’s what I appreciate about them.”

In Los Angeles, LayerHost is located in One Wilshire, one of the most densely connected buildings in the U.S., allowing a broad choice of global peering and cloud connections. As the number of its Asia-based customers grew, LayerHost expanded to Houston, operating a 350,000 square foot facility. The Houston data center is hurricane-proof and optimized for high-performance computing and AI.

In addition to building an Asia-optimized network that anticipates a growing number of DDoS attacks, LayerHost also provides customers with a groundbreaking service that can absorb an assault of up to 4 Tbps.

“If the customer is not happy, then we are not happy,” Kazah says. That’s been LayerHost’s guiding principle from the first days of online game hosting: meet or exceed the needs of small businesses, developers, and multinational corporations.

A Juniper foundation allows LayerHost to pivot to emerging opportunities. For instance, LayerHost relies on its Juniper network to create private, secure routes for its customers. “Junos OS allows us to create logical separations using routing instances and VRFs to provide customized experiences for customers,” says Ken McRae, architect at LayerHost.

Carrier-grade reliability and scalability are key. “The crossplatform unity of Junos OS makes it easier to scale,” McRae says. “Whether we deploy an MX Series router, a QFX Series switch, or an EX Series switch, we use the same Junos OS. That familiarity across platforms, unlike with other vendors, enables us to work more quickly.”

As LayerHost sees growing demand for more bandwidth and more controls, its investment in MX Series routers continues to deliver. “There are sophisticated attacks taking place, and to maintain a robust mitigation posture, we need visibility into that traffic,” McRae says. “With Juniper, we can enhance our ability to do application inspection and threat mitigation.”

Whatever the future holds—exponential traffic growth, innovative new services, or new geographic opportunities— LayerHost will be ready with its reliable, scalable, and adaptable global network from Juniper.