11.7 Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS. Using AWS Direct Connect, you can establish private connectivity between AWS and your data center, office, or co-location environment, which in many cases can reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.

Direct Connect Benefits

• Reduce costs when using large volumes of traffic

• Increase reliability

• Increase bandwidth

How is direct connect different from a VPN

VPN connections can be configured in minutes and are a good solution if you have an immediate need, have low to modest bandwidth requirements, and can tolerate the inherent variability in Internet-based connectivity. So you can tolerate if a VPN connection drops out for example.

AWS Direct Connect does not involve the Internet, instead, it uses dedicated, private network connections between your intranet and Amazon VPC.

DX facility - Direct Connect facility.

Direct Connect Connections

• Available in

• 10 Gbps

• 1 Gbps

• Sub 1 Gbps can be purchased through AWS Direct Connect Partners

• Uses Ethernet VLAN trunking (802.1Q)

In the exam, if you don't want your traffic to traverse the Internet if you want to increase reliability, lower costs, etc, you might want to use Direct Connect. If you've got an immediate need to have a connection between your corporate HQ and Amazon, you need to encrypt, and you probably use a VPN because you can set that up in a couple of minute. If you use Direct Connect, it will take you months to get that setup.