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Short answer: Equinix completed its $335 million purchase of Packet on March 3, 2020, intending to combine Packet’s API-driven bare-metal automation with Platform Equinix. That strategy eventually led to Equinix Metal, but Metal is now retired. Equinix’s transition guidance points displaced customers to Equinix colocation, Equinix Managed Solutions or a suitable third-party provider.
What Equinix bought when it acquired Packet
Equinix announced the Packet agreement on January 14, 2020, and completed the transaction on March 3, 2020. The purchase consideration was $335 million.
Packet provided software-controlled access to dedicated physical servers. Its central proposition was to give customers bare-metal performance and isolation while making provisioning feel more like using a public-cloud service: servers could be ordered, configured and managed through APIs rather than through a traditional hardware-purchasing process.
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What Equinix planned to do with Packet
Combine physical infrastructure with cloud-style control
The original integration thesis was hybrid infrastructure. A customer could place workloads on dedicated servers while connecting those systems to public clouds, private environments and network partners through Equinix’s facilities and interconnection services. The goal was to avoid making customers buy and operate every physical server themselves while still offering more control than a conventional virtual machine.
Use Equinix’s data-center footprint
Contemporary acquisition coverage described a planned rollout across more than 200 Equinix IBX data centers. Equinix initially prioritized extending the capability through existing colocation facilities; broader edge expansion was described as dependent on customer demand rather than guaranteed everywhere.
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That plan explains why Packet’s identity became associated with Equinix Metal. It does not establish that the original Packet service continues as a separate product today.
How the Metal shutdown unfolded
| Date | Event | Practical meaning |
|---|---|---|
| January 14, 2020 | Equinix announced its agreement to acquire Packet. | The proposed combination was automation from Packet plus Platform Equinix. |
| March 3, 2020 | The $335 million acquisition closed. | The business operated as Packet, an Equinix company while integration work proceeded. |
| Q4 2024 | Equinix announced that Equinix Metal would no longer be commercially available. | The product entered a wind-down rather than a further commercial expansion. |
| 2025 filing | Equinix reported up to approximately $14 million in expected Metal wind-down costs. | This was an estimated maximum for the shutdown process, not a customer price. |
| June 30, 2026 | Equinix Metal reached end of life. Workload migrations had to be complete by 11:59 p.m. PDT. | Metal service operations ended. |
| July 1, 2026 | Metal resources were removed and new resource creation was disabled. | Customers could no longer provision replacement Metal resources. |
| January 1, 2027 | Equinix says the Metal console will be taken offline. | Download invoices and any other records needed for audits before that date. |
Is Equinix Metal still available?
No. Equinix’s product documentation describes Metal as sunset, and the service’s end-of-life and resource-removal milestones have passed. The remaining console-access window is for administrative records, not for deploying new infrastructure.
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- PLUG-AND-PLAY UNMANAGED NETWORK SWITCH: Simple plug-and-play setup with no software to install or configuration required.
- FLEXIBLE MOUNTING OPTIONS: Compact metal design supports desktop or wall-mount placement for versatile installation.
- SILENT & ENERGY-EFFICIENT OPERATION: Fanless design ensures silent performance, while IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet reduces power consumption without compromising high-speed network performance.
- REGIONAL COMPATIBILITY: Made for use in U.S. & CA only
Why did Equinix close Packet and Metal?
The public record establishes the product decision but does not give one definitive technical, financial or strategic cause. Equinix announced in late 2024 that Metal would no longer be commercially available, disclosed expected wind-down costs in a 2025 filing and issued migration guidance afterward.
In practical terms, Equinix moved from the 2020 expansion thesis—make bare metal available at software speed through Platform Equinix—to a portfolio-refocusing and customer-migration phase. It would be speculative to claim that a particular performance problem, security incident, acquisition integration failure or profitability threshold caused the closure unless Equinix explicitly identifies it.
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What to use after Equinix Metal
Equinix’s transition guidance names three broad paths: Equinix colocation, Equinix Managed Solutions or a third-party provider. It does not designate one preferred third-party replacement, and the available material does not establish current provider-by-provider prices or service-level rankings.
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| Path | Who operates the physical layer | Provisioning and automation | Connectivity considerations | Commercial details to verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equinix colocation | Your team or a hardware partner generally owns and operates the servers; Equinix supplies the facility environment. | Automation depends on your hardware-management stack and any services you add. | Evaluate the required cloud on-ramps, cross-connects, carriers and metro locations. | Contract term, power allocation, remote-hands charges and hardware responsibility were not stated in the transition guidance. |
| Equinix Managed Solutions | Equinix or its managed-services operation takes on more of the infrastructure responsibility. | Ask which provisioning APIs, monitoring, patching and lifecycle workflows are included. | Confirm connectivity to the clouds, networks and sites your application uses. | Service scope, migration assistance, term and pricing must be quoted for the workload. |
| Third-party bare-metal cloud | The provider supplies and operates dedicated servers. | Many providers offer API or portal provisioning, but capabilities differ and must be verified. | Compare metros, cloud interconnection, bandwidth, latency and address portability. | Check recurring and setup charges, minimum commitments, support terms and exit provisions. |
| Third-party colocation | Your organization or an infrastructure partner operates the hardware in another facility. | You control the orchestration layer; facility automation varies by provider. | Validate carriers, cross-connect availability, route diversity and geographic fit. | Confirm power, space, remote hands, security controls, hardware shipping and contract terms. |
How to choose a replacement
1. Classify the workload
- Record CPU architecture, core count, memory, local-disk or NVMe needs, accelerator requirements and sustained network throughput.
- Separate workloads that require dedicated hardware from those that can move to virtual machines or managed cloud services.
- Document latency-sensitive dependencies, stateful data, license restrictions and maintenance windows.
2. Set the geographic and network target
List the required metro areas, cloud regions, carriers, private links and latency limits. A provider that offers the right server specification but cannot reproduce the required network path may not be a functional replacement.
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3. Decide how much operations work to retain
Colocation preserves the most control but leaves hardware lifecycle and many operational tasks with you. Managed infrastructure shifts more responsibility to the provider. A bare-metal cloud is closer to Metal’s provisioning model, but its API, inventory, locations and support model must be tested rather than assumed.
4. Test before committing
- Recreate representative deployments and measure application performance under realistic load.
- Test failure recovery, replacement hardware, backups, monitoring, logging and out-of-band access.
- Verify cloud connectivity, firewall behavior, IP addressing, DNS changes and data-transfer costs.
- Obtain written answers about migration assistance, support escalation and maintenance notifications.
5. Close the security and exit gaps
Confirm encryption, administrative access, tenant isolation, physical security, incident notification, retention, secure erasure and deletion evidence. Also document how to retrieve data, images, logs and invoices and how to terminate the replacement service without leaving equipment or credentials behind.
What former Metal customers should retain
Keep architecture diagrams, deployment definitions, API scripts, inventory exports, invoices, support records, backup evidence and data-destruction confirmations. These records help reproduce the environment elsewhere and support financial, security or regulatory audits after the Metal console is unavailable.
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