In the race to deliver cloud infrastructure services to businesses, Google is gunning hard to catch up with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) powerhouse. On Tuesday, it made the obvious move to use its network for competitive advantage.
As part of several announcements it made at its Cloud Platform Live event in San Francisco, Google also unveiled Cloud Interconnect, which will let businesses tap into Google data centers via its own expansive, worldwide fiber network.
Google Cloud Interconnect announced three connectivity options:
- Direct peering for a fast and private direct link from over 70 points of presence in 33 countries, without using an intermediary network
- Carrier Interconnect will enable connections via one of seven carrier partners — Equinix, IX Reach, Level 3, TATA Communications, Telx, Verizon, and Zayo.
- VPN connections, to be introduced in December
Finally, a way to jack in to Google
Private links to public clouds are important for many enterprises. A private network with a very fast connection to the cloud provider’s data centers will allow them to mimic how they use on-premise servers. The move to the cloud becomes a little less daunting.
This initiative puts Google in line with AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft’s Azure ExpressRoute and IBM SoftLayer’s Direct Link, which provide companies with dedicated physical connections between their servers and a public cloud.
Powering Interconnect is Google’s Andromeda software-defined networking stack announced in April.
The cloud service market is quickly expanding, with AWS way out in front in terms of market share, followed by Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google. But at this stage, the rising tide is lifting all boats. According to IDC estimates, the public cloud market will be worth about $56.6 billion (U.S.) in 2014, and grow over the next five years at a 22.8 percent annual clip — six times faster than the overall IT market — to become a $127 billion market in 2018.
Google is also putting its money where its mouth is. Its own CTO of corporate network recently called on carriers and cloud providers to cooperate more closely to improve the network and application performance they deliver to enterprises.
