Network operators may adjust their routing policy to decide how to send and receive traffic through adjacent autonomous systems. This is known as traffic engineering, and it’s used for a variety of reasons: to reduce bandwidth costs by utilizing particular paths or improving performance by using a particular transit provider that has a less-congested or lower-latency path to a destination network.
The links between these various paths and networks operate in a certain way: they scale capacity based upon observed utilization. As traffic increases, links are added within individual networks. If there’s a sudden change in utilization, these paths may experience congestion, as they’re handling a greater amount of traffic than ever before. In short, traffic engineering can be complicated.
There isn’t just one network, but many all over their world – all trying to deliver traffic and perform their own traffic-engineering. To further complicate things, some networks don’t pair with other networks at all. When this happens, the only solution is a transit provider. And even though you’ll have a path via transit, you don’t necessarily have an uncongested path at all hours of the day, particularly at peak hours.
One way to eliminate the hops between networks is via direct connections. AWS provides a service to do just this: AWS Direct Connect. With Direct Connect, customers can connect their network directly into the AWS infrastructure. This will enable bypassing network providers all together via direct physical connectivity and remove any potential Internet routing or capacity issues.
According to Amazon, this private network connection provides a safer, more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections. Particularly for enterprises that cannot use the public Internet to transfer data for fear of compliance concerns, Direct Connect is a helpful workaround. It can be used with all AWS services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), and Amazon DynamoDB.
AWS Direct Connect is reliable, flexible, and compatible, though designing it to speak to a business’s unique needs can be a difficult and lengthy process. It includes procuring, deploying, configuring, and monitoring – all of which take valuable resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
There’s benefit to working with an Amazon Partner Network (APN) Technology and Consulting Partner, who can either assist in constructing a hybrid environment, or aid in using AWS Direct Connect by establishing network circuits between an AWS Direct Connect location and an environment in a data center. We’re one such partner and proud to have pre-provisioned ports and offer Direct Connect capabilities in all AWS regions in the United States, as well as EU (Ireland) and APAC (Singapore).
Since AWS charges for data transferred over the dedicated connection at a reduced rate, compared to the standard Internet data transfer rate, Direct Connect is a potential option for lowering costs, as well.
To use AWS Direct Connect, your network must meet one of the following three conditions:
- Your network is colocated with an existing AWS Direct Connect location.
- You are working with an AWS Direct Connect partner who is a member of the APN.
- You are working with an independent service provider to connect to AWS Direct Connect.
While the above is the first requirement to use AWS Direct Connect, your network must also meet a few other criteria—a full list can be found on the AWS Direct Connect page. For more information on partnering with an APN member, please visit our Managed Hybrid Cloud Connect page.