Until now, Australian companies looking to connect to AWS from Australia had to do so through the public internet, which can have unpredictable connectivity and varying performance. But today, Equinix announced the availability of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect to the Equinix SY3 International Business Exchange data center in Sydney.
With AWS Direct Connect, customers across Australia can connect their customer-owned and managed infrastructure directly to AWS, establishing a private network connection that reduces network costs, increases throughput, and provides more consistent network performance than Internet-based connections.
“Having access to multiple networks within the data center is a critical component of a successful cloud strategy; it helps enhance application performance and ensure redundancy. By providing our customers access to carrier-neutral data center facilities, we hope to allow them to fully tap into the value of AWS Direct Connect services,” says Eric Hui, Director of Cloud, IT, Content and Digital Media at Equinix.
Cloud adoption in Australia is rapidly accelerating. According to Forrester, 36 percent of Australian organizations are currently using cloud-based services-a notable increase from 22 percent in 2010 and 14 percent in 2009. With the successful rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN), cloud demand is expected to rise even more. By 2020, the public cloud market in Australia is projected to be worth $3.2 billion.
Regular readers of Interconnections will remember when the availability of AWS Direct Connect in Equinix IBX’s was first announced in August of last year. Equinix’s General Manager of Global Content & Cloud, Chris Sharp, had this to say about the benefits of AWS Direct Connect.
“First off is the security in the connection. As it’s delivered across a cross connect, it’s completely private and it’s no longer traveling across the Internet. The second key benefit is performance. Because it’s a dedicated fiber connection directly into the AWS infrastructure, you get much better performance than the Internet at large. And third, from an expense perspective, if you have a large amount of data flowing out of the AWS cloud, it’s actually a much cheaper way to get that data out of the cloud.”
Are our readers in APAC ready for the increased speed and reliability? Chime in on the comments below!
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