Connecting to the Clouds

What is the most critical requirement for any organisation looking at cloud computing or third party controls service? The answer in iQ3’s (now Tesserent) experience is network connectivity, which seems pretty obvious, but because public cloud is made to sound so simple, even the simplest of things can be overlooked!

iQ3 (now Tesserent) has noticed in our discussions with customers of late that there is an expectation that purchasing an AWS DirectConnect or Azure NFP ExpressRoute is the resolution to all their networking problems, especially when they can be purchased at speeds ranging from a few megabits per second (mbps) through to gigabits per second (gbps). If we consider Direct Connect or ExpressRoute to be a gateway or router into their respective clouds, you are really only paying for a certain speed of router / gateway on the public cloud side. However, this is only half of the requirement, you also need to make a physical connection between your gateway / routers and theirs, and this is where it gets interesting.

There are basically four main ways to procure such a connection:

• Telco Providers – dark fibre, MPLS/VPLS
• Datacentre Providers – cross connects etc
• Software Defined – like Megaport
• Service Providers – typically pick or bundle offerings above and will give you an unbiased recommendation on your needs

If you have infrastructure hosted in a co-lo datacentre it definitely makes it much more simple to connect to one of these services. However, with increasing numbers of customers trying to reduce their infrastructure spend it is becoming more common to connect an office directly to public cloud. This is another area where a service provider like iQ3 can provide their experience. iQ3 can work with you to design and deliver a high speed, highly available network architecture, whether you are in a co-lo facility or not. iQ3 work with leading telco providers and enterprise networking equipment to ensure your multi cloud connectivity design and delivery meets the needs of your organisation.

Before you shift your workloads to public cloud, be sure to talk to the experts to determine what your best option is. Remember, your network connectivity becomes the lifeline to your organisations productivity with the move to public cloud infrastructure.

If you would like more information around making the switch to the Cloud and how Tesserent can assist your organisation to migrate quickly and seamlessly, please contact us and Stuart and the team will be happy to help!