Private Cloud Connectivity Explained: Direct Connect, ExpressRoute and Interconnect

Every major cloud provider offers a way to connect your network directly to its backbone, bypassing the public internet: AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, Google Cloud Interconnect and Oracle FastConnect. They differ in names and details, but solve the same problems.

Why go private?

• Predictable performance: consistent latency and throughput, independent of internet congestion.
• Security and compliance: traffic does not traverse the public internet.
• Cost: data transferred out of the cloud over a private connection is typically billed at lower rates than internet egress — significant for backup, analytics and media workloads.
• Bandwidth: from hundreds of megabits to 100 Gbps.

Dedicated vs hosted connections

A dedicated connection is a physical port on the cloud provider’s router in a co-location facility. A hosted or partner connection is delivered through a connectivity partner or cloud exchange, often at smaller bandwidths and with faster provisioning.

Connecting more than one cloud

With a cloud exchange fabric, a single physical port can carry virtual circuits to several clouds. Your data centre can then reach AWS, Azure and Google Cloud — and route between them — without separate circuits for each.

Designing for resilience

Use at least two connections in different locations, run BGP so failover is automatic, and test failover regularly. A single private link is a single point of failure.

Ubixe Infotech designs and delivers private multi-cloud connectivity end to end. Learn about Multi Cloud Connect or plan your cloud network.