3 Multicloud Network Designs for Simplified Multicloud Connectivity

As multicloud environments became the standard enterprise architecture, many organizations adopted a hodgepodge of networking tools and cloud-native solutions to connect their public cloud environments and private infrastructure and other services. These combinations of what are often vendor-specific networking solutions tend to overly rely on the public internet, and taking this approach can lead to a fragmented mess of different protocols, security policies and monitoring tools.

Unfortunately, this haphazard approach to multicloud networking has led to a lot of network management complexity. IT teams lack unified control and visibility into their networks. Network performance and reliability can be substandard because of inefficient traffic patterns. Using the internet presents data security and privacy risks. And inter-cloud traffic, overprovisioning and network design inefficiencies can lead to excessive cloud spend.

The right multicloud networking strategy can help companies address these challenges. As organizations plan for the future of their multicloud architectures, many are reevaluating their multicloud network design to optimize network performance, costs, resiliency and data security.

Before modifying your existing multicloud network design, consider the following questions:

• What are my network performance requirements for bandwidth, latency and uptime?
• Are there data security, privacy and compliance issues I need to address?
• What’s my budget, and how do I balance costs with my requirements?
• What level of built-in redundancy do I need to support business continuity?
• Which clouds are required, and what volume of data will pass between them?

Your multicloud network design will depend on your responses to these questions. Whether you have a simple scenario where you just need to connect a colocation deployment to public clouds, or a more complex situation involving connectivity between clouds and private infrastructure with rigorous security or networking functionality requirements, you have options to help you implement a simplified multicloud network design that meets your needs.

Let’s look at three different multicloud network designs that simplify multicloud networking.

Scenario 1: Connecting infrastructure to one or more clouds

Many companies simply need to connect private infrastructure that’s on-premises or in a colocation facility to one or more public clouds.

While a lot of companies default to using the internet for multicloud connectivity, it typically has weaker performance and is less reliable than private connectivity solutions. By its very nature, the public internet operates on a best-effort basis, making it inherently unpredictable and therefore unsuitable for workloads that require consistent reliability.

Direct, private interconnection with public clouds delivers better performance and reliability than the internet. For instance, you can use Equinix Fabric®, a Network as a Service (NaaS) solution, for flexible, on-demand connectivity with clouds. As a global software-defined network, Equinix Fabric is great for high-performance private connectivity to clouds, data centers and on-premises systems, wherever they’re located. It is integrated directly with leading clouds like AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. In fact, Equinix is a global leader in native cloud on-ramps, many of which can be accessed on demand using Equinix Fabric. And because it’s an on-demand service, you have maximum flexibility: You can easily change cloud connections whenever your business needs change.

Figure 1: Multicloud connectivity with Equinix Fabric

Scenario 2: Multicloud connectivity with simplified routing

Many organizations have recognized that leveraging the strengths of multiple clouds can help them optimize workloads. Doing so requires that they connect various public cloud environments to bring together the applications and data stored in those clouds to complete tasks.

Routing traffic between clouds comes with interoperability challenges, as well as increased latency and limited routing control. Each cloud may use its own network architecture, routing mechanisms and security frameworks, making consistency across a multicloud network nearly impossible. Some companies try using cloud-native tools for cloud-to-cloud connectivity, which usually rely on internet-based connectivity and thus may not be ideal for certain performance and security requirements. It’s also worth noting that some workloads require high availability, which the internet can’t provide.

In this scenario, private, virtual connectivity solutions deliver more resilient, high-performance multicloud networking. With Equinix Fabric and Equinix Fabric Cloud Router, our virtual routing service, you can privately route applications and data across different clouds with high throughput. By using a single routing domain, this solution offers greater visibility and control than using multiple cloud-native tools, simplifying network management and improving observability. And with the ability to spin up on-demand connections to multiple clouds and your own infrastructure, it offers much faster deployments than using physical routers. Last but not least, Equinix Fabric Cloud Router’s built-in redundancy helps ensure high availability for mission-critical workloads.

Figure 2: Multicloud connectivity with Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router

Download this solution reference design: Simplify multicloud networking with secure, agile connectivity.

Scenario 3: Secure multicloud networking with your vendors of choice

Some organizations not only need to connect private infrastructure or create a better cloud-to-cloud network, but also require advanced networking and security capabilities in their multicloud network architecture. For example, companies that want additional networking functionality in areas like firewalling may need a multicloud networking design that accommodates a more comprehensive set of capabilities for network security. In addition, some companies want their multicloud network design to integrate smoothly into their existing network stack, using vendors their teams already have experience with.

If you have special requirements or want to work with specific networking vendors you know and love, you can design a multicloud network architecture using Equinix Fabric with Equinix Network Edge, our Virtual Network Functions as a Service (VNFaaS) solution. Equinix Fabric provides connectivity to clouds, and Equinix Network Edge provides virtual routers, firewalls, SD-WAN devices and more from industry-leading vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Juniper and Fortinet. While physical network appliances require upfront investment and take time to deploy, you can deploy virtual devices on demand in minutes with Equinix Network Edge. You can also deploy redundant pairs for increased network resiliency. And as with the other multicloud network designs, dedicated connections to your preferred clouds offer lower latency and higher bandwidth than internet-based connectivity.

Figure 3: Multicloud connectivity with Equinix Network Edge and Equinix Fabric

Explore simplified multicloud networking with Equinix

If you’ve been cobbling together your multicloud network using the internet and bolting on various cloud networking tools, it may be time to improve your multicloud network design. The three scenarios outlined above are just a few of the ways Equinix customers are using our multicloud networking capabilities to simplify connectivity in hybrid multicloud environments. Working with Equinix is ultimately about maximizing your freedom to design the multicloud network you need today and evolve it in the future as your needs change.

Learn more about hybrid multicloud networking in our Multicloud Networking Guide.