XO Communications Expands Amazon Direct Connect Services

Networking and cloud services provider XO Communications is building out its support of Amazon Web Services‘ interconnect to provide enterprises with a direct connection to Amazon (AMZN) with speeds between 50Mbps and 500Mbps.

Using AWS Direct Connect, XO Communications is adding a dedicated connection to Amazon’s infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and the company is positioning it as a faster and more secure way to connect to Amazon Web Services. This actually expands on an existing relationship XO Communications already has with Amazon in using Direct Connect, but its previous relationship was offering connection speeds of between 1Gbps and 10Gbps.

“Companies of all sizes are now looking for reliable, more secure access to cloud resources through direct connections to AWS,” said Nicola Jackson, vice president of Product and Marketing at XO Communications, in a prepared statement. “Toward achieving that for our customers, XO is helping companies maximize their network investments with cost-effective connections to the cloud.”

In its announcement, XO Communications stated that enterprise adoption of cloud services required secure network connectivity and management tools, and those leveraging AWS can use its “secure, scalable and reliable” XO Internet protocol virtual private network (IP-VPN) to accelerate their respective cloud strategies. Additionally, XO Communications is aiming to reduce the challenges and risks that are sometimes associated with usage of public cloud services.

Direct connection to public cloud providers has been growing in popularity, particularly in recent months as data center and hosting companies get on board to help their clients connect to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and other public cloud IaaS offerings in a faster and more secure fashion.