Cloud Direct Connections-What are the Benefits?

During the pandemic, hybrid work models became increasingly popular, prompting many companies to adopt cloud-based IT and communications platforms to support employees working from the office, home, or on the go. 

With the emergency phase over and hybrid work now the standard, enterprises aim to recreate the seamless "on the desktop" experience for their cloud-connected employees. This requires minimizing latency and maximizing security for cloud-based infrastructure and applications, necessitating better cloud connections.

While businesses typically connect to the cloud via the public Internet, its inherent insecurity and unreliable performance drive many organizations to seek alternatives. This is where cloud direct connections, also known as direct connects, come into play, offering secure, high-performance access to the cloud.

Introduced in the 2010s, direct connects emerged as enterprises began shifting more workloads to the cloud, needing more reliable, secure, and faster connectivity than the public Internet could offer. Today, they are a crucial topic in nearly every conversation TierOne has with cloud-dependent businesses.

What are Direct Connections to the Cloud?

Cloud direct connects are dedicated private network connections from an enterprise data center, office, or colocation environment to public cloud providers. Enterprises commonly use direct connects to link to:

• Hyper scale public cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud.
• Application service providers (ASPs) like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Adobe, and other software as a service (SaaS) providers.

Benefits of Direct Connects

Direct connects offer several advantages over the publicInternet, including:

• Improved Security: Since data doesn’t traverse the public Internet, enterprises face less exposure to potential threats, supporting compliance with industry-specific data security standards.
• Enhanced Performance: Direct connects provide dedicated bandwidth with lower latency, higher throughput, and greater reliability. They also allow for traffic prioritization to ensure quality of service (QoS) for critical applications.
• Simplified Networking: These connections reduce the complexity of routing data to and from the cloud, and many providers manage the physical network connection on behalf of the enterprise.
• Reduced Costs: Direct connects replace high IP transit costs with modest port or cross-connect fees and reduce or eliminate data egress charges for transferring data over the Internet from a CSP environment to another location.

Why Enterprises Should Consider Direct Connects

Direct connections to the cloud are particularly beneficial in several scenarios:

• Hybrid Cloud: Ensuring secure and quick communications for applications that span on-premises and cloud environments, such as a database on-premises and a web server in the cloud.
• Multi-Cloud: Simplifying network architecture and management by offering direct connections to multiple cloud platforms through a single interface.
• High Traffic: Benefiting from improved security and cost reductions for significant traffic to CSPs.
• Cloud Dependence: Ensuring reliability and accessibility for businesses that rely on cloud-based applications to drive revenue.
• Business Continuity: Providing fewer points of failure for greater reliability and fewer disruptions. Facilitating speedy data transfer to and from a cloud disaster recovery site and linking to multiple data centers in multiple regions for geo-redundancy.

Is a Direct Connect Right for Your Business?

If your business uses cloud services, evaluating your network to determine if a direct connection could be beneficial is worthwhile. With extensive experience in data center, hybrid cloud, and complex networking projects, we can help design solutions that drive positive business outcomes. Want to learn more about our network connectivity? We'd be happy to share our expertise.

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