Windstream Now Offers Access to AWS, Azure, Other Cloud Providers

Windstream on Wednesday rolled out an enhanced version of its Cloud Connect offering that allows customers to connect to cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle and Salesforce.

Windstream’s Joe Harding

Windstream Cloud Connect offers customers flexible bandwidth options ranging from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps, with the ability to design customer offerings using multiple 10 Gbps connections, the company said. It also supports a variety of connectivity options – including SD-WAN, MPLS VPN, VLS or new wavelengths – allowing customers to create a cloud-optimized network, and it is supported by Windstream’s technical assistance team of engineers.

Joseph Harding, Windstream’s executive vice president and enterprise chief marketing officer, tells Channel partners the offering creates new opportunities for medium and large enterprises across all verticals that are looking to move their traffic to hyperscale providers to enable their cloud initiatives.

“By offering customers this connectivity, we give our partners the ability to meet the growing service and bandwidth needs of their customers,” he said. “With the expectation for cloud services in the United States to double in the next five years, it’s a trend we believe our partners will be interested in.”

The service allows customers to more easily move data and workloads between cloud environments, as well as maximize flexibility and scalability by integrating dedicated onsite IT infrastructure with shared offsite cloud-based environments, Windstream said. These cloud-based environments allow them to “optimize application performance and reliability, increase network resiliency and simplify network management.”

Cloud Connect is available to Windstream partners and companies in its nationwide service area.