Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI)

Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI) is a service that provides a secure, private, and scalable network connection from a business to multiple public cloud service providers, like AWS or Google Cloud. It uses a business's existing Masslocal Private IP network to create secure links separate from the public internet, reducing security risks. The service also offers benefits such as fast deployment of new cloud services, flexible usage-based pricing, and simplified management through a single portal. 

Key Features and Benefits

• Private Connectivity: SCI uses Masslocal's Private IP (MPLS-based VPN) network, ensuring that data bypasses the public internet, thus reducing security risks and unsolicited traffic.

• Multi-Cloud Ecosystem: It allows businesses to connect to a wide range of leading CSPs, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, Salesforce, and more.

• Scalability and Flexibility: The service offers scalable, on-demand bandwidth that automatically adjusts to meet spikes in application use without manual intervention, and pricing plans can be consumption-based (pay for what you need).

• Rapid Deployment: Connections to new cloud resources can be provisioned quickly—often in days rather than weeks—due to pre-established network interfaces with cloud providers.

• Centralized Management: The Dynamic Network Manager portal provides visibility and control over cloud connections, allowing users to view reports, manage connections, and set threshold alerts.

• Hybrid Cloud Support: SCI supports hybrid cloud strategies by enabling seamless and secure connectivity across various public and private cloud environments and data centers. 

In essence, Secure Cloud Interconnect helps businesses manage the complexity of using multiple cloud services by offering a reliable, high-performance, and secure networking solution designed for enterprise-level cloud adoption. 

What are some real-world applications or use cases of Secure Cloud Interconnect?

Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI) is used by businesses across various industries to establish high-performance, secure, and compliant connections to cloud resources. Here are some real-world applications and use cases: 

• Securing Sensitive Data and Ensuring Compliance: Industries such as healthcare and finance use SCI to ensure sensitive data (like patient health information (PHI) or financial records) remains separate from the public internet, helping them meet strict regulatory requirements like HIPAA.

• Enabling Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Strategies: Organizations use SCI as a central component of their hybrid cloud architecture, seamlessly connecting on-premises data centers, private clouds, and multiple public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.).

• Rapid Deployment of Cloud Services: A global research company used SCI to quickly connect new business acquisitions to cloud-based applications across data centers and remote offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific, reducing deployment times.

• Enhancing Application Performance and Reliability: A global travel company improved network and application performance, increased reliability, and strengthened security by using SCI to route traffic directly to in-region cloud-based test and development environments, eliminating the latency of backhauling traffic through the U.S..

• Supporting Data-Intensive Applications in Manufacturing: Pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers use high-bandwidth SCI links to reliably transmit large volumes of process control data, quality inspection reports, and video streams from on-premises computer vision systems to the cloud for AI processing and analysis.

• Optimizing Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Businesses leverage SCI to set up redundant connections across multiple cloud providers, improving resilience and enabling effective disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

• Providing Secure Access to Enterprise Tools: A Fortune 100 utility company used SCI to provide seamless, secure, and reliable access to essential collaborative tools like Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint for its employees.

• Managing Dynamic Bandwidth Needs: Companies like D-Link use SCI's scalable, consumption-based bandwidth to support dynamic spikes in application use during production and development activities without significant capital expenditures. 

How does SCI improve application performance over the public internet?

Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI) improves application performance over the public internet by offering a dedicated, private connection that provides greater predictability, lower latency, and higher throughput. 

Here’s how:

• Bypassing the Public Internet: Traffic on SCI travels over Masslocal's owned and managed global Private IP (MPLS) network, which is completely separate from the unpredictable, "best-effort" public internet. This isolation eliminates the congestion, variable routing, and security risks inherent in public networks.

• Reduced Latency: Latency is the delay before data transmission begins, and lower latency means a faster, more responsive experience, which is critical for real-time applications. SCI reduces latency through:

  • Direct Routing: Data doesn't traverse numerous, unpredictable internet "hops" but follows pre-determined, optimized paths directly to the cloud provider's network access points (NNIs).

  • In-Region Connectivity: A use case showed that by providing "in-region connectivity" rather than backhauling traffic across continents (e.g., from Europe to the U.S.), SCI significantly reduced delays for a global travel company's application testing environment.

• Predictable Performance (Quality of Service - QoS): The public internet offers no guarantees on speed or performance metrics like latency, jitter, and packet loss. SCI, however, is backed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee consistent and predictable performance, ensuring critical applications receive the necessary priority and bandwidth.

• Dedicated Bandwidth: Unlike public internet connections where bandwidth is shared with countless other users in an area, SCI provides dedicated bandwidth to your organization. This means you aren't competing for capacity, ensuring consistent speeds even during peak usage times.

• Scalable Throughput: SCI offers scalable, on-demand bandwidth that can be increased or decreased quickly via a management portal to meet spikes in application use, preventing bottlenecks when large data volumes need transferring.

• Optimized Routing: The underlying network uses techniques like Deterministic Routing and Quality of Service (QoS) features to ensure the most efficient and application-appropriate path is used for data delivery. 

Tell me more about guaranteed performance with SLAs

Masslocal Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI) is backed by comprehensive Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that provide guaranteed performance metrics for network characteristics like latency, packet delivery ratio, and jitter. These guarantees ensure a consistently high-quality experience for critical business applications that the public internet cannot match.  

How the Guarantees Work

• Financial Backing (Service Credits): If Masslocal fails to meet any of these specified Service Level Standards within a calendar month, customers are eligible to receive financial compensation in the form of service credits on their bill.

• Proactive Monitoring: Masslocal proactively monitors the network performance statistics (latency, jitter, etc.) and posts this data. Outages are tracked via trouble tickets opened by the customer or proactively by Masslocal, and these records are used to determine SLA compliance.

• Class of Service (QoS) Support: SCI supports different classes of service (QoS) on the Private IP network, allowing businesses to prioritize critical application traffic (like voice or database synchronization) over less critical traffic, ensuring the most important data always receives premium, guaranteed performance.

• Sole Remedy: The service credits detailed in the SLA are the customer's sole and exclusive remedy for performance failures, which provides a clear and contractually defined resolution path. 

The SLAs essentially transform network performance from a "best-effort" public internet experience into a reliable, enterprise-grade utility that businesses can depend on for their most critical operations.