Customer edge device
Cloud / Knowledge library
AWS Direct Connect
Creates dedicated network connections from customer locations to AWS
Why learn AWS Direct Connect?
Teams use AWS Direct Connect to adopt dedicated private cloud connectivity without building the complete underlying platform themselves.
The problem it solves
Provides private high-capacity connectivity from external networks to cloud providers
Where it came from
AWS Direct Connect is Amazon Web Services's offering for dedicated private cloud connectivity. Its closest catalog counterparts are Azure ExpressRoute and Google Cloud Interconnect; they address the same broad need but are not feature-for-feature identical.
Build your understanding
Work through these exercises in order. Try the task before opening a reference.
- Explain the main responsibility of AWS Direct Connect.
- Choose a workload that fits AWS Direct Connect.
- Identify one operational tradeoff of AWS Direct Connect.
- Compare AWS Direct Connect with Azure ExpressRoute.
- Compare AWS Direct Connect with Google Cloud Interconnect.
Documentation and sources
- AWS cloud services catalog (aws.amazon.com)
Connect the ideas
Alternatives
Real World Example
Hybrid Financial Data Synchronization
A regional investment firm managing high-frequency market data feeds that require consistent, predictable network latency between their private data center and AWS cloud resources.
The business problem
The firm experiences significant jitter and packet loss when routing sensitive financial transaction data over the public internet, leading to inconsistent synchronization with their cloud-based analytics engine.
How this topic solves it
AWS Direct Connect establishes a dedicated physical network connection from the firm's on-premises router to an AWS Direct Connect location, bypassing the public internet to provide a private, consistent network path.
- Submit a connection request via the AWS Management Console to receive a Letter of Authorization (LOA).
- Provide the LOA to the colocation provider to facilitate the physical cross-connect between the firm's router and the AWS device.
- Configure a Virtual Interface (VIF) on the Direct Connect connection to enable routing between the on-premises network and the Amazon VPC.
- Update local BGP routing configurations to advertise on-premises prefixes to the AWS environment.
Shows the flow of data from the private data center to the AWS cloud infrastructure.
Physical fiber link
AWS edge facility
Logical BGP connection
Cloud analytics environment
- On-Premises Router → Physical Path → Cross-Connect
- Cross-Connect → Physical Termination → AWS Direct Connect Location
- AWS Direct Connect Location → Logical Mapping → Virtual Interface
- Virtual Interface → Traffic Routing → Amazon VPC
Expected business outcome
The firm achieves a stable, private network path that eliminates public internet congestion, resulting in predictable data transfer latency for their financial analytics workloads.
Limitations and checks
Direct Connect is a physical infrastructure dependency; if the local cross-connect or the physical fiber path is severed, connectivity is lost. To check for health, monitor the BGP session status and physical link state via the AWS console or CloudWatch metrics.