OREANDA-NEWS. November 25, 2015. Instant, high-performing and secure connections to the Amazon Web Services cloud platform is what AWS Direct Connect was made to deliver and now Equinix is delivering it in two more places, on two different continents.

Starting immediately, AWS Direct Connect will be available with Equinix  in London and Dallas, bringing the total of Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX ®) data centers with Direct Connect to 10. 

Ryan Mallory, Equinix’s vice president of technology, said more customers are asking for ways to directly and securely connect to AWS, and we wanted to increase their options. 

“AWS Direct Connect makes it easy for companies to establish a dedicated network connection from Equinix to AWS,” Mallory said.

Ultimately, Mallory added, connecting through Direct Connect “reduces network costs, increases throughput, and provides a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.”

Direct Connect will be available at our DA2 facility in Dallas, a longtime network and telecommunications hub. In London, Direct Connect will be accessible at LD5, which becomes just the second Equinix location in Europe to offer the service.

This expansion of Direct Connect availability through Equinix comes as companies increasingly look to deploy hybrid clouds. Gartner says only about 15% of enterprises are currently using a hybrid cloud, but it predicts mainstream adoption is only about two to five years away.

The operational complexities and security worries that are holding some companies back are addressed by AWS Direct Connect, because direct connections are safer, easier to deploy and help the enterprise maintain maximum control over its infrastructure. It’s a seamless way for chief information officers to incorporate cloud services into their IT infrastructures.

At the same time, more AWS Direct Connect options will help the enterprise keep pace with of another trend, this one toward increased interconnection, defined as direct and secure, physical or virtual connections between employees, partners and customers. Our recent Enterprise of the Future survey of 1,000 global IT decision-makers found that 3-in-5 consider interconnection “very important” to their ability to compete. And 84% expect their companies to have an interconnection-based architecture by 2017, more than double the percentage of interconnected enterprises today.

Whether an enterprise accesses AWS Direct Connect in London, Dallas, or one of the eight other Equinix locations, it will also find cost savings. AWS Direct Connect customers can cut data transfer costs to AWS by two to 10 times, depending on data volume.

Click the link to learn more about AWS and AWS Direct Connect with Equinix.