It's a new model for Equinix, one that should make it easier for its customers to find out who's selling what services in the data centers where they operate.

"They're looking for folks who are already in their data center, in close proximity to them, so they can easily connect to a partner and speed up service delivery times," said Jarrett Appleby, Equinix's chief marketing officer.

The company operates 99 data centers, about half of them in North America, and says it has more than 4,000 customers. Its clients have already been buying services from each other, mostly network services, but they couldn't easily see all the options available to them.

"We've allowed our customers to set up a digital storefront and say, 'Here's what I can offer you, and in which data center,'" Appleby said.

Equinix also stands to benefit, because its clients might put more of their services in its data centers if they think they can sell them there easily. Equinix also collects network connection fees from its customers, so it makes more money if they do more business with each other.