NTT Communications will provide its enterprise customers with direct private connectivity to Microsoft’s and Amazon Web Services’ public clouds through a new service, Multi-Cloud Connect.
The more dependent enterprises become on public clouds, the more dependent they become on a network connection that doesn’t falter. Inconsistent Internet performance has become an impediment to widespread cloud adoption, according to NTT.
NTT hopes to offer a better performing alternative with its Multi-Cloud Connect, which lets enterprises access public cloud services via its MPLS (Multi-protocol Label Switching) network.
The purported advantages include better reliability, faster speeds, lower latency and higher security. Enterprises can take advantage of that when building hybrid clouds where some applications or parts of applications run on-site and others in a public cloud. That could include a tiered storage architecture or a cloud-based disaster recovery solution.
A dedicated connection to Microsoft Azure or Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) should also lower the bar for moving applications that depend on low latency to the cloud, such as virtual desktops.
Multi-Cloud Connect became available in Tokyo on Wednesday, and will be expanded to London in December, followed by the U.S. and other parts of Asia.
Speeds from 10Mbps to 1Gbps are available when connecting to Microsoft and 50Mbps to 500Mbps to Amazon. NTT didn’t announce any pricing.
NTT is far from the only company offering dedicated connectivity for public clouds. Amazon has partnered with service providers all over the world on AWS Direct Connect and Microsoft offers ExpressRoute. But the NTT launch highlights how the cloud market is maturing step by step to provide buyers with more choice and flexibility.