Move Data Between Clouds, Quickly and Consistently

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in May 2023. It was updated in February 2026 to include the latest information.

The proliferation of powerful cloud services is one of the most important IT stories of our time. These services have completely redefined what enterprises can accomplish, giving them access to new tools and capabilities on demand, the flexibility to deploy IT infrastructure when and where they want, and the greater cost-efficiency that comes with shifting to an OPEX model.

That said, most IT leaders recognize that working exclusively with a single public cloud provider will not yield the best results. Enterprises need a hybrid multicloud architecture to maximize the benefits of cloud while keeping costs down and avoiding vendor lock-in. In fact, a recent survey of senior IT leaders found that 50% of all enterprise application workloads now operate in multicloud or hybrid cloud setups.[1]

This highlights one of the major challenges facing businesses today: Simply put, hybrid multicloud networking is hard, and doing it across multiple regions only makes it harder. Unless businesses can simplify it, they won’t be able to move the right data into the right cloud at the right time.

To use cloud services to their full potential, you need reliable, high-performance networking across your entire global operations. Implementing a cloud-to-cloud connectivity solution is one way you can get it.

How does multicloud work without optimized cloud-to-cloud connectivity?

Imagine you have a hybrid multicloud architecture with your database services hosted at Microsoft Azure and your analytics suite hosted at Amazon Web Services (AWS). To get value from your analytics tools, you need to move data from one cloud to another, quickly and consistently. In a traditional hub-and-spoke IT infrastructure model, all traffic would have to pass through a centralized on-premises environment before eventually reaching its final destination.

This indirect routing will contribute to higher latency, which would limit the effectiveness of your multicloud applications. The problem would be especially pronounced if you’re accessing the cloud remotely. To return to our previous example, imagine your on-premises infrastructure is in Boston, but you need to access both clouds in Ashburn. Any traffic you need to move between the two clouds would require a complete roundtrip—Ashburn to Boston to Ashburn—leading to even greater latency.

Also, inefficient cloud-to-cloud connectivity doesn’t just impact cloud workloads. Data moving between clouds would have to pass over your organization’s WAN, taking up network capacity that could be better used for other purposes. Since non-cloud workloads would have to compete with cloud workloads for bandwidth, performance would suffer for both sets of traffic. You’d also end up paying for more network bandwidth than you would otherwise, and the overall cost-effectiveness of your hybrid multicloud environment would suffer.

Evaluate your cloud-to-cloud connectivity options

The drawbacks of inefficient cloud-to-cloud connectivity are clear, and enterprises have several choices for how they can address the issue.

First, moving cloud data via the public internet is always an option. This allows you to keep cloud traffic off your own WAN, but it can’t provide the level of performance and reliability you need. Since internet traffic doesn’t follow the most direct route between clouds, you’ll most likely still experience high latency, so you won’t have solved one of the biggest underlying problems.

In addition, moving data over a public connection exposes it to more cybersecurity risks, even when using encrypted VPN connections, so enterprises have good reason to be wary of using the public internet for their vital cloud workloads.

Another option would be to work with a network service provider (NSP) that can design, implement and manage a cloud-to-cloud connectivity solution on your behalf. Depending on your exact needs, an NSP solution could work well for you. The only potential drawback is that you most likely won’t have complete and direct control over your solution.

Finally, you have the option to build your own cloud-to-cloud connectivity solution with the help of a digital infrastructure partner such as Equinix. In fact, Equinix partners with more than 2,000 NSPs worldwide, so there’s a good chance your solution will be based on the same Equinix tools regardless of whether you acquire them directly from us or through a managed solution delivered by an NSP. Unlike working with an NSP, you’ll have tighter control over building and managing your connectivity solution exactly how you want.

Implementing a cloud-to-cloud connectivity solution independent of cloud or network providers could make it easier to scale capacity and add new routes and elements to your infrastructure. As new tools like hosted AI and machine learning continue to gain popularity, these tools and platforms will need access to cloud-hosted data and applications. Specifically, the advent of distributed AI is exacerbating existing multicloud networking challenges. Businesses now need to move larger datasets between AI workloads hosted in more locations and environments. For instance, many companies will need connectivity to AI neoclouds like Groq, Nebius and CoreWeave. Building your own cloud-to-cloud connectivity solution can help provide that access.

Finally, building your hybrid multicloud networking solution with virtual networking and connectivity services offers benefits such as:

• Cost efficiency: Align bandwidth with your actual business needs and avoid high egress fees.
• Reliability: Avoid the variability of the public internet. Use multiple virtual connections for redundancy by design.
• Ease of deployment: Spin up connections on demand and manage them via an online portal and APIs.

Ensure cost-effective, high-performance cloud-to-cloud connectivity

Equinix is the ideal place to find cloud-to-cloud connectivity capabilities because we provide proximity to all major cloud providers in many different locations. In fact, Equinix is the global market leader in native cloud on-ramps, with more than twice as many as the next-largest competitor. We’re particularly well suited to support multicloud applications on a global scale: There are 39 different metros where we offer access to two or more major clouds, and 12 metros where we offer access to five or more major clouds.

We also offer the flexibility to build the exact multicloud connectivity solution that meets the needs of your business, whether that includes a traditional physical router deployed in a colocation data center or a virtual router.

Equinix Fabric Cloud Router is our virtual routing solution. It’s built into Equinix Fabric®, our software-defined interconnection service, and it’s available in all 60+ Equinix Fabric metros worldwide. It enables secure, low-latency cloud-to-cloud connectivity without the need for physical hardware. It also supports simplified multicloud networking: You can deploy direct connections between clouds in minutes and change them anytime your needs change.

Enterprises can use Fabric Cloud Router to complete a rapid, cost-effective migration between two clouds. For instance, rideshare giant Uber was able to spin up the bandwidth they needed to move 6.5 petabytes of data from one cloud to another, and then scale back down after the migration was complete. Read the Uber story.

Also, our Equinix Network Edge service offers multicloud routers as virtual network functions (VNFs) from top vendors. You can select a virtual device from the vendor of your choice, and manage it just as you would a physical router from that same vendor. Other Network Edge VNFs include firewalls, SD-WAN devices, load balancers and zero-trust security solutions. These virtual devices can all be integrated with Equinix Fabric connectivity to better meet the diverse networking requirements of your multicloud environment.

The payment technology provider Dojo used Network Edge virtual routers and Equinix Fabric software-defined networking for optimized connectivity to multiple clouds, as shown in the diagram above. Read the Dojo story.

Whether it’s Fabric Cloud Router for simplified cloud-to-cloud connectivity or Network Edge for diverse VNFs on demand, Equinix offers the solutions you need to optimize your multicloud networking. To learn more, read our guide to hybrid multicloud networking. This guide provides a closer look at nine critical and often overlooked factors that are essential to multicloud networking success.

[1] Connectivity as the competitive edge: The state of hybrid multicloud networking, Equinix, 2025.