AWS Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect is a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS. With AWS Direct Connect, you can establish private connectivity between AWS and your data center, office, or colocation environment, which in many cases can reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.

Key Features

• Dedicated Network Connection: AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated, low-latency, high-bandwidth connection from your premises directly to AWS, bypassing the public internet.
• High Performance: Benefit from reduced network costs, increased bandwidth throughput, and a consistent network experience.
• Scalable: Direct Connect supports multiple connection types, including 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and 100 Gbps, allowing you to scale your network connection as needed.
• Redundant Connections: Achieve higher availability and reliability by setting up multiple Direct Connect connections for redundancy.
• Hybrid Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrate your on-premises environments with your AWS cloud workloads, enabling hybrid cloud architectures.

Architecture Overview

The following diagram illustrates how AWS Direct Connect integrates your on-premises network with AWS:

• On-Premises Data Center: AWS Direct Connect establishes a dedicated connection from your on-premises data center to an AWS Direct Connect location.
• AWS Direct Connect Location: The connection from your premises terminates at an AWS Direct Connect location, which is then connected to the AWS backbone network.
• Private Virtual Interface: Use private virtual interfaces to connect to your Amazon VPCs, enabling secure communication between your on-premises network and AWS.
• Public Virtual Interface: Access AWS public services such as Amazon S3 and DynamoDB via a public virtual interface, while keeping traffic off the public internet.

Use Cases

• Hybrid Cloud Architectures: Extend your on-premises data center into AWS, enabling you to run hybrid applications that span on-premises and AWS environments.
• Data Transfer and Backup: Use Direct Connect for fast, reliable data transfer to and from AWS for large-scale data migration, backup, and disaster recovery.
• Low-Latency Applications: Ensure consistent, low-latency performance for applications that require high-speed, direct access to AWS resources.
• Regulatory Compliance: Meet regulatory and compliance requirements by using a dedicated, private network connection for sensitive data transfers.

Integration with Other AWS Services

AWS Direct Connect integrates with several other AWS services to provide a robust, end-to-end network solution:

• Amazon VPC: Use private virtual interfaces to connect directly to your Amazon VPCs, enabling secure communication between your on-premises network and AWS.
• AWS Transit Gateway: Integrate Direct Connect with AWS Transit Gateway to simplify complex network architectures by interconnecting multiple VPCs and on-premises networks.
• AWS Direct Connect Gateway: Connect to multiple VPCs across different AWS regions using a single Direct Connect connection.
• AWS Global Accelerator: Use Global Accelerator in conjunction with Direct Connect to improve the availability and performance of your applications running in AWS.