How Direct Connect Works?
Direct Connect works by establishing a dedicated physical connection between your on-premises network and an AWS Direct Connect location, by bypassing the public internet. This physical connection can be established using fiber optic cables or Ethernet etc. After the physical connection setup, a virtual interface (logical connection) between your on-premises network and AWS environment needs to be configured. Once you are done with the configuration of virtual interfaces, you can start using the Direct Connect connection to access services such as managing Virtual Private Clouds (VPC), storage services, and others. You can also monitor the performance and usage of connection using AWS tools and services to track bandwidth utilization etc.
What is Direct Connect in AWS?
Most of the modern IT infrastructure use hybrid application that is deployed along multiple cloud platforms or multiple locations. The typical connection between that environment travels through VPN Tunnel over the public internet. Thus a connection might suffer in case of unpredictable internet connection, latency, or loss of private customers’ data. So a dedicated connection is needed between data centers and offices.
Here comes the Direct Connect in the picture, networking services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It provides a dedicated network connection over standard Ethernet fiber-optic cable between your data center (on-premises data center) and AWS Direct connect location that completely bypasses the public networks coming in between.