What is AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX) and why enterprises need AWS Direct Connect?
AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX) is a cloud service solution that simplifies establishing a dedicated network connection from on-premises to AWS.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) global cloud infrastructure is the most secure, scalable, and reliable cloud platform, providing over 300 services with a wide range of features from data centers in locations around the world.
AWS services can be deployed anywhere and at any time, allowing businesses to develop and go-live applications and workloads in most regions with low latency only a few miliseconds.
AWS owns more than 600 Points of Presences (PoP), including more than 600 edge locations and 33 regional edge caches. Particularly in Vietnam, businesses and users can only connect to the nearest AWS PoPs located in Singapore and Hong Kong through the connection infrastructure of FPT Telecom or other ISPs such as Viettel, CMC, VNPT.
However, international bandwidth can be affected due to “shark bites” or rare incidents, therefore, to ensure stable transmission bandwidth and ensure low latency when using AWS services or when connecting to applications running on AWS, enterprises often consider using the AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX).
So what is AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX)? Why use this service? Let's find out together with FPT Cloud Hub in this article
AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX) - What is it?
According to AWS:
“AWS Direct Connect is a cloud service solution that simplifies establishing a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS.
Using AWS Direct Connect, businesses establish a private connection between AWS and their data center, office, or colocation environment. This can help increase bandwidth throughput and provide a more stable network experience compared to Internet-based connections.”
Simply put, AWS Direct Connect allows businesses to deploy a dedicated, stable connection between AWS and their data center, office, or colocation environment, which in many cases can help reduces network costs, increases bandwidth throughput, and provides a more consistent network experience compared to Internet-based connections.
When using AWS DX service, connections to AWS will not go out to the Internet but will go through this private line, changing according to business needs, up to 100Gbps.
Here, businesses will need to go through a AWS partner in Vietnam, typically FPT Telecom with the service FPT Cloud Connect in deploying an “all-in-one” AWS Direct Connect service without having to consider different segments:
Connection through AWS Direct Connect
AWS Direct Connect allows establishing a specialized network connection between the enterprise network and one of AWS Direct Connect locations (currently AWS has 115 Direct Connect Locations, the closest to Vietnam are Singapore and Hong Kong).
AWS Direct Connect allows you to establish a dedicated network connection between your network and one of your AWS Direct Connect locations. Using VLAN 802.1q as standard, this connection can be partitioned into multiple virtual interfaces.
This allows you to use the same connection to access public resources such as objects stored in Amazon S3 without going through a public URL and private resources such as Amazon EC2 instances running in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) via private IP.
At the same time, maintain network separation between public and private environments. Virtual interfaces can be configured at any time to meet your constantly changing needs.
Virtual interfaces can be configured at any time to meet the constantly changing needs of the business. Additionally, AWS Transit Gateway can be used to simplify the network model on AWS.
With the experience of AWS Networking Consulting Competency, FPT Cloud Hub is confident in being able to advise and deploy the most optimal network diagram/topology for businesses and AWS Direct Connect.
Benefits of using AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX)
The need cannot be denied "moving to cloud” or going to the cloud is increasing, leading to the need for security and stable connection of businesses, especially banks, finance, education and insurance...
Here are the main reasons that AWS Direct Connect brings to businesses using the AWS cloud:
1. Reduce bandwidth costs
If you have bandwidth-intensive workloads that you want to run on AWS, AWS Direct Connect reduces your network costs into and out of AWS in two ways:
- First, all data will go through a private connection channel, instead of going out to the Internet. In this way, businesses can reduce bandwidth commitment fees with Internet service providers.
- Second, all data transferred over the enterprise's dedicated connection is billed at the AWS Direct Connect data transfer cost, which is lower than the Internet data transfer cost.
Below is a comparison of costs when transferring data via the Internet (Internet Leased Line channel) and FPT Cloud Connect (based on AWS DX) in 03 cases 10TB, 30TB and 100TB/month
2. Consistent network performance
Network latency over the Internet can change because the Internet constantly changes the way data is transmitted from point A to B due to depending on many network connections of other ISP units.
With AWS Direct Connect, businesses can choose which data to use and how to route the data, providing a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.
Với hạ tầng được đầu tư bài bản và đảm bảo dự phòng cao của FPT Telecom – đối tác triển khai AWS Direct Connect và AWS Networking hàng đầu tạo Việt Nam, chúng tôi cam kết SLA > 99.95% với tỉ kệ mất gói tin (packet loss) < 0.5%
3. Compatible with all Amazon Web Services (AWS) services
AWS Direct Connect is a network service and works with all AWS services accessible over the Internet, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).
Enterprises can use AWS Direct Connect to establish private virtual interfaces from the on-premises network to Amazon VPC, creating a private, high-bandwidth network connection between the office/data center network and the AWS VPC. With multiple virtual interfaces, businesses can even establish separate connections to multiple VPCs while still maintaining network isolation.
4. Flexibility and Simplicity
AWS Direct Connect makes it easy to scale connections to meet customer needs. AWS Direct Connect offers 1Gbps and 10Gbps connections, and businesses can easily provision multiple connections if they need more capacity.
Businesses can also use AWS Direct Connect instead of establishing a VPN connection over the Internet to Amazon VPC, which limits the use of VPN hardware – which typically cannot support data transfer speeds higher than 4 Gbps.
Businesses can quickly and easily sign up for AWS Direct Connect services through the AWS Management Console. The console provides a single view to efficiently manage all your virtual connections and interfaces. You can also download customized router templates for your network devices after configuring one or more virtual interfaces.
FPT Cloud Hub will accompany businesses in deploying and connecting, the deployment process will be less than 7 days with our companion.
Recommended case studies using AWS Direct Connect
1. Businesses need to transfer large data into and out of AWS
Transferring large data sets over the Internet can be time-consuming and costly. When using AWS, the transfer of large data sets can be slow because the business's network traffic is occupied by other needs such as office tasks, cameras, backups, etc.
To reduce the amount of time needed to transmit data, businesses always have to negotiate with Internet service providers to buy more bandwidth or increase bandwidth on weekend evenings..., these requirements are often expensive and demanding the low SLA commitment, affecting the project.
With AWS Direct Connect, you can move your business's critical data directly from your data center, office, or location environment into and out of AWS, bypassing your Internet service provider, and eliminate network congestion.
Furthermore, AWS Direct Connect's simple billing pricing and no minimum commitment mean businesses only pay for the network ports they use and the data they travel over the connection, which can Significantly reduce business network costs
2. Businesses require high speed, low latency real-time data
Real-time applications can also benefit from using AWS Direct Connect.
For example, applications that use voice and video perform best when network latency is low and stable. Network latency over the Internet can vary because the Internet continually changes how data gets from point A to point B.
With AWS Direct Connect, businesses control how data is routed, which can provide a more consistent network experience across Internet-based connections.
3. Businesses want to deploy the Hybrid Cloud model
AWS DX provides a secure, reliable connection from enterprise systems to AWS resources and services by leveraging the provider's network, such as FPT Telecom.
Using domestic infrastructure is also a way to comply with domestic data management and protection according to Vietnam's Decree and Laws. The hybrid environment allows combining the elasticity and economic benefits of AWS with the ability to use other infrastructure that the business already owns or domestic cloud infrastructure such as FPT Cloud.
AWS Direct Connect deployment model
First you need to determine the AWS Direct Connect location(s), this is where DX services are supported by AWS, the list can be seen below: https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/features/#AWS_Direct_Connect_Locations, commonly deployed locations are Equinix and Global Switch.
Note: Businesses can access any AWS Region from any of the AWS Direct Connect locations listed above (except China)
How to connect to AWS Direct Connect
In addition to the business router located in the Data Center / office, the business will need a router located at the Direct Connect Location that the business chooses. In DX Location, AWS has a device called Direct Connect Endpoint. From there, the business will establish a connection between the Router and this device using 802.1q VLANs.
Then create a VPN at your VPC, connect the Private virtual interface on the VPC to the Direct Connect Endpoint. So the connection between the enterprise service and AWS has been implemented.
Here, FPT Telecom will deploy a complete connection, including last-mile (connection infrastructure from customers to FPT Telecom's data centers) and direct connection to the AWS DX Location that the customer chooses. Businesses only need to choose AWS region, let FPT Telecom take care of the rest!
FPT Cloud Connect's network topology
FPT Cloud Connect is an advanced channel solution for businesses in the FPT Cloud Hub ecosystem through a specialized connection to service applications in a simple, effective and secure way, based on services of the most popular cloud computing providers on the market today.
FPT Cloud Hub (FPT Telecom) will support customers in deploying the following topologies:
- Non-resiliency: This topology is only deployed when the business already has another supplier's infrastructure. FPT Telecom will act as a backup channel when the existing supplier has a problem. This topology is not our priority, businesses can consider the High-resilliency 1+1 model.
- High-resiliency: In this topology, FPT Telecom commits to deploying infrastructure that always has redundancy (1+1) in both infrastructure and connection equipments from 01 customer site to AWS region. SLA commitment from 99.95% in this topology.
- Max-resiliency: The model is similar to High-resiliency but deployed to 02 or more customer sites. In this model, the SLA commitment is up to 99.99%.
These topologies are based on AWS best practice: https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/resiliency-recommendation/
Interfaces on AWS via AWS Direct Connect (AWS DX)
When using AWS Direct Connect, businesses can also access other AWS services such as Amazon S3 without using the Internet. To be able to do this, businesses create a Public Virtual Interface and use the diagram above to connect to S3 without going through the Internet.
With AWS Direct Connect, businesses can deploy the following 03 virtual interfaces:
- Private virtual interface: Access AWS VPC using private IP address.
- Public virtual interface: Access AWS services from enterprise services. Allows AWS services or AWS customers to access enterprise public networks via Interface instead of accessing the Internet.
- Transit virtual interface: Access one or more Amazon VPC Transit Gateways associated with Direct Connect gateways. Businesses can use the Transit virtual interface with AWS Direct Connect 1/2/5/10 Gbps connectivity.
Above is all the information about AWS Direct Connect. Businesses who want to receive detailed advice as well as wish to deploy this service can contact FPT Cloud Hub - the leading trusted partner of AWS Vietnam for further consultation.
Refer to FPT Cloud Connect, a comprehensive service deploying AWS Direct Connect: https://fptcloudhub.io/en/cloud-connect/
About FPT Telecom International (FPT Cloud Hub)
Established on May 22, 2008, FPT International Telecom is a member company of FPT Telecom.
Inheriting the experience and infrastructure of the parent company - FPT Telecom, one of the leading telecommunications service providers in Vietnam, FPT Telecom International has operated independently since the beginning of 2008 and is now considered a one of the leading reliable service providers in Vietnam.
FTI is one of the most comprehensive and widely applied IT and Cloud service providers in Vietnam, providing a full range of services nationwide. Thousands of customers - including the fastest growing startups, largest enterprises and leading government agencies - use FPT International Telecom's services and solutions to optimize costs, become more agile and innovate faster.
Journey of FTI - AWS partner in Vietnam:
- FTI Achieves AWS Advanced Technology Partner (Advanced Software Partner Tier) in 2020.
- From January 2021, FTI achieved Amazon Direct Connect Delivery Partner of AWS in Asia Pacific (APAC).
- From January 2, 2022, FTI becomes AWS Select Services Tier which provides consulting, billing and Managed Service solutions of AWS.
- Moreover, FTI also is AWS Public Sector partner, is certified with experience providing solutions to government, educational and non-profit clients throughout Vietnam and around the world.
- October 2022, FTI upgraded from AWS Select Tier Services Tier to AWS Advanced Services Tier, , demonstrated their ability and relentless efforts for customers and became the first and only partner in Vietnam to simultaneously achieve the rank of Advanced at Services path, and Software path.
- In March 2023, FTI was the first AWS partner in Vietnam to achieve AWS Networking ISV Competency, this certification confirms the partner's capacity and in-depth experience in consulting, building and administering AWS Direct Connect solution.
- In December 2023, FTI was the first AWS partner in Vietnam to achieve AWS Networking Consulting Competency, certifying the capacity to consult, implement and operate AWS Networking solutions.
Customers can view information of FTI on the partner site of Amazon Web Services (AWS): https://partners.amazonaws.com/partners/0010h00001cCj5aAAC/