![[Preview] AWS Interconnect has arrived, making it easy to procure high-speed, resilient private network connections between AWS and other cloud service providers](https://images.ctfassets.net/ct0aopd36mqt/33a7q65plkoztFWVfWxPWl/a718447bea0d93a2d461000926d65428/reinvent2025_devio_update_w1200h630.png?w=3840&fm=webp)
[Preview] AWS Interconnect has arrived, making it easy to procure high-speed, resilient private network connections between AWS and other cloud service providers
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I want to easily procure high-speed private connections between AWS and other clouds
Hello, this is nonpi (@non____97).
Have you ever wanted to easily procure high-speed private connections between AWS and other clouds? I have.
These days, having a multi-cloud environment is not uncommon. In such cases, you may want to establish communication between AWS and other cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Google Cloud or Azure for system integration purposes.
While it's possible to publish systems built on each CSP on the internet and integrate them via APIs, organizational policies often require private communications such as VPNs for connections between CSPs.
There are broadly two approaches to address this:
- Establish direct Site-to-Site VPN connections between CSPs
- Connect on-premises with CSPs using services like Direct Connect or Express Route, with on-premises acting as a hub for routing communications between CSPs
For the former approach, the following articles have been introduced on DevelopersIO:
While Site-to-Site VPN is easy to implement, there are concerns:
- Whether there are performance impacts such as latency and jitter due to internet routing
- Whether routing through the internet is acceptable from a security policy perspective
The latter approach does not use the internet, so it's preferable from a security policy perspective.
However, it increases structural complexity and the cost of implementing/operating routers. Also, even with existing Direct Connect and Express Route, when large-volume communications between CSPs are expected for data analysis, there may be situations where you want to minimize the impact on existing network bandwidth.
Now, though in preview, AWS Interconnect has been introduced to enable simple and resilient high-speed private network connections between AWS and other cloud service providers.
Google Cloud also published two blog posts about this:
This helps mitigate the challenges mentioned earlier.
Checking specifications from documentation
Overview
Let's check the specifications from the following documentation:
AWS Interconnect is a service that establishes managed, high-speed network connections between private networks of different CSPs.
You simply select the source region in AWS, the destination CSP region, and bandwidth, and then enter the activation key on the destination CSP side.
Not only are there few steps, but establishing a connection between AWS and Google Cloud takes only minutes to complete. That's impressive.
Fast provisioning and scaling
New Multicloud interconnects between AWS and Google Cloud are provisioned and configured in minutes. On General Availability, customers will be able to increase or decrease the bandwidth of a specific Multicloud connection by modifying that attribute, without the need to recreate the connection.
The ability to change bandwidth without recreating the connection is also appreciated.
According to Google Cloud's blog, it will be possible to expand up to 100Gbps at GA:
on-demand bandwidth starting at 1 Gbps during preview and scaling up to 100 Gbps at general availability.
How it works
The mechanism works by communicating through locations that can connect to both AWS and Google Cloud.
You might think, "Doesn't routing through on-premises each time increase hop count and therefore latency?" However, clouds also have a physical layer. If this physical layer is optimized for AWS Interconnect, it should have less performance impact than routing through on-premises as a hub yourself.
Also, true to being a managed service, AWS Interconnect is distributed across multiple network devices in at least two physically separate buildings, with independent power and networking. It's nice that it covers aspects that would be challenging to design on-premises yourself.
Google Cloud's blog post also included an easy-to-understand diagram:
In terms of Direct Connect, it's clear that there are two Direct Connect Connections in each of two locations, for a quadruple redundancy.
Encryption is performed using MACsec between CSP edge devices connected via AWS Interconnect. To use MACsec with Direct Connect, you need to overcome hurdles such as:
- Having dedicated Direct Connect connections of 10Gbps, 100Gbps, or 400Gbps
- End routers that support MACsec
- Only 256-bit MACsec keys are supported
- SCI needs to be enabled
Reference: MAC security with Direct Connect - AWS Direct Connect
It's great that this is handled in a managed way.
Integration with AWS network services
Connections created through AWS Interconnect communicate via Direct Connect.
Therefore, it's possible to enable communication between VPCs and other CSP networks through VGW, Transit Gateway, or Cloud WAN.
Note that VGWs and Transit Gateways connected to Direct Connect Gateway must be in specific region combinations with the destination CSP region.
Supported regions
The region combinations available during preview are:
| AWS | Google Cloud |
|---|---|
| us-east-1 | us-east4 |
| us-west-1 | us-west2 |
| us-west-2 | us-west1 |
| eu-west-2 | europe-west2 |
| eu-central-1 | europe-west3 |
Note that you cannot connect AWS us-east-1 to Google Cloud us-west-1.
Also, it's expected to be available for Azure in late 2026, so let's look forward to that.
Pricing
During the public preview period, 1Gbps connections can be used for free.
GA pricing will be announced later.
However, only AWS documentation mentions that it's free during the public preview period.
The equivalent functionality for AWS Interconnect in Google Cloud is called Cross-Cloud Interconnect. This is a service that has existed for some time.
The pricing for this service is as follows and is not free:
| Resource | Price |
|---|---|
| Cross-Cloud Interconnect connection | $5.60/hour per 10 Gbps circuit |
| Cross-Cloud Interconnect connection | $30/hour per 100 Gbps circuit |
| VLAN attachments of 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 Mbps | $0.10/hour per VLAN attachment |
| VLAN attachments of 1, 2, 5, 10 Gbps | $0.10/hour per VLAN attachment |
| VLAN attachment of 20 Gbps | $0.20/hour per VLAN attachment |
| VLAN attachment of 50 Gbps | $0.50/hour per VLAN attachment |
| VLAN attachment of 100 Gbps | $1.00/hour per VLAN attachment |
| Connection Location | VLAN Attachment Region | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Asia* | Asia* | $0.042/GiB |
*Data transfer rates shown only for communications with both source and destination in Asia
Excerpt from: Pricing | Google Cloud
The lower limit for a single circuit is $5.60/h, and if quadruple redundancy is needed, it would cost $22.4/h. Pricing for connections from AWS Interconnect may appear at GA, but it seems unlikely that it would be dramatically cheaper.
Let's keep an eye on the pricing when Cross-Cloud Interconnect for AWS is released as a separate service.
Tried to implement it
Now let's try it out.
The implementation method is described in the following AWS official documentation:
Go to the AWS Direct Connect Console and navigate to AWS Interconnect on the left side navigation menu.
This suggests that AWS Interconnect is a sub-feature of Direct Connect.
I open the Direct Connect management console.
Well, there's no AWS Interconnect item.
I checked with other AWS accounts and changed the language from Japanese to English, but couldn't find any mention of AWS Interconnect.
Looking through the documentation, it appears that onboarding will be available within weeks following re:Invent 2025.
AWS Interconnect was announced in Preview at re:Invent 2025 with Google Cloud. Customers will be able to begin onboarding to the new service in the weeks immediately following the event.
We'll have to wait.
When you want managed, resilient high-speed private network connections between AWS and other CSPs
I've introduced AWS Interconnect.
It's a very valuable feature when you want to establish managed, resilient high-speed private network connections between AWS and other CSPs.
Once it becomes available to use hands-on, I plan to post another verification article.
I hope this article helps someone.
This has been nonpi (@non____97) from the Cloud Business Division, Consulting Department!
