Vantage Data Centers Connects to Amazon via Level 3

Vantage Data Centers is the latest company to join the ever-growing number of providers offering a way for customers to connect to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (MSFT) public clouds via a private direct connection.

Vantage has signed an agreement with Level 3 to provide access to the latter’s Cloud Connect Solutions ecosystem to tie into AWS Direct Connect and Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, the public cloud giants’ private connection systems for more quickly and efficiently delivering data and apps to their clouds.

“We have seen increased interest in hybrid cloud-data center solutions from our customers, and we are working with Level 3 Cloud Connect Solutions to respond to that demand,” said Greg Vernon, senior vice president of Sales at Vantage Data Centers, in a prepared statement. “Many customers have applications that exist partially in their data center and partially in the cloud. This connectivity between Vantage and Level 3 makes it much easier and more cost-effective for businesses to integrate the two.”

At this point, it’s safe to call this a trend in cloud—a quickly growing trend, in fact. Through private direct connection systems such as Direct Connect and ExpressRoute, customers can gain benefits including reduced latency for mission-critical apps and lower bandwidth costs when they move large workloads in and out of the cloud.

It seems likely more and more organizations will demand such access over time. The benefits are great, and the drawbacks appear to be non-existent. Additional data center companies are signing on to support one or more of the private direct connection systems that currently exist on a regular basis.

In Vantage’s case, the data center company will provide access to the Level 3 interconnection system from four enterprise-grade data centers in Santa Clara, California, and Quincy, Washington.