Cloud Networks

Hi Guys

Below major cloud service providers have following options for on-premise to cloud network connectivity.

Cloud Service	Network service	Bandwidth up to
Azure	Express Route	10Gbps or more
AWS	Direct connect	10Gbps or more
Oracle	Corente	10Gbps or more

Organizations are not limited to only a single cloud network provider's solution option. Furthermore, they’re not merely able to access valuable cloud resources via the Internet. Hence, a combination of the solutions to form a resilient, high-speed, high-availability, hybrid cloud network is required.

In order to implement a connection from a private network space to a cloud network providers, below questions, should be asked:

• Will the connection be temporary or permanent?
• What is the capacity required?
• How resilient does it need to be?
• Where will the connection be coming from?
• Is the private network located at a fixed office site?
1. Are there multiple office locations?
2. How are the multiple offices locations connected, physically and logically?
3. What is the primary leased line from the site? Is it fiber Ethernet?
4. Does the primary leased line provider support 802.1QVLANs?
5. What major data centers, such as Telehouse or Telecity, is the primary leased line provider present in?
6. What resiliency exists for the leased line?
7. Who provides the physical connectivity resiliency?
8. Who manages the physical and logical resiliency?
9. Is the logical private network resilient, such as failover routes via alternate leased line providers to another site?
10. What firewall devices are present at the site?
• How are they configured, such as High Availability Active/Active?
1. Are site-to-site licenses available on the devices?
2. Are there VPN failover policies enabled?
3. Who manages these devices?
4. Do the office locations have sufficient internet access capacity?
5. Is there sufficient fibre Ethernet capacity to upgrade internet access?
• Is the private network in a colocation facility?
1. Are there multiple colocation facilities?
2. Who provides the network connectivity between the facilities?
3. Do the colocation providers supply backhaul via 802.1QVLANs?
4. What physical and logical connectivity resiliency is in place?
5. Are the colocation providers supplying Managed Internet Access (MIA)?
6. How are they connecting you to the internet, such as their own feed or a third party transit provider?
7. How are the public peering arrangements organized? What are the private peering arrangements?
8. In which major data centers, such as Telehouse or Telecity, are the colocation providers present in.
9. What firewall devices are present at the colocation sites?
10. Who manages the firewall devices?
11. What edge routers do they operate?

VPN

Internet VPN is the first, and simplest, option, and it provides the shortest lead time of the three options. Cloud providers charge for the total bandwidth transferred from the public cloud. Data transferred over VPN counts against data transfer cost. There isn't a minimum commitment associated with VPN options.

Direct connection

For a more predictable connection, cloud providers offer a direct private connection via co-location facilities. Commonly referred to as cloud hotels, cloud providers partner with large data center providers such as Switch. Cloud hoteliers terminate multiple cloud provider networks into their facilities.

Direct connections come in two Ethernet speeds of 1Gbps or 10Gbps. Cloud hotels offer extremely short terms such as 1-month commitments. Customers can leverage the shorter commitments for short-term projects to transfer data, or to test a new service from a cloud provider.

Telco managed

Telco providers offer managed services based on a direct connect model. Customers may find that speed less than 1Gbps or speeds between 1Gbps and 10Gps more desirable. Telco providers bundle connectivity to a cloud provider's network. Many times, these connections are direct connections in cloud hotels.

Customers have a wider variety of connectivity options from telco providers. For example, telco providers offer MPLS and Ethernet connection options to your preferred cloud provider. Telco terms tend to mimic existing WAN commitment lengths—telco providers normally offer commitments lengths ranging from 12-36 months.

Customers aren't limited to a single connection option, however. Any combination of the above solutions combines to form a resilient, high-speed hybrid network.

Please write your comments if this helped you and let me know if I can help you further.