CloudInterconnects

Cloud interconnects are network services that provide private, high-bandwidth connectivity between an organization’s on-premises network and a cloud provider’s network. They are typically established in a colocation facility or via a partner network and use a dedicated physical connection or a hosted circuit rather than traversing the public Internet.

Common configurations include dedicated connections and hosted connections. A dedicated connection is a permanent circuit from the customer premises to the cloud provider, offering fixed bandwidth (for example 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, up to 100 Gbps). Hosted connections are provisioned by a cloud provider through a partner, enabling quicker provisioning and scalable bandwidth. Within the cloud provider’s network, customers can create private virtual interfaces to access private cloud resources, or public interfaces to reach public cloud services with private routing. Connections often terminate at carrier hotels or colocation facilities, with cross-connects to the provider’s edge routers and redundancy via multiple circuits and diverse paths.

Benefits include lower latency and more stable performance compared to the public Internet, improved security by keeping traffic off the open Internet, and more predictable egress costs. Limitations involve higher cost, the need for specialized network management, and geographic availability constraints, which may introduce vendor lock-in or require hybrid-network planning.

Examples of cloud interconnect offerings include AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, Google Cloud Interconnect, IBM Direct Link, and Oracle FastConnect. Use cases encompass hybrid cloud deployments, disaster recovery, large-scale data transfer, and regulatory or performance-sensitive workloads.