GCP – Reimagine global network connectivity with Cross-Site Interconnect, now GA

For modern enterprises, network connectivity is the lifeblood of the AI era. But today’s technology landscape has challenges that are pushing traditional networking models to their limits: 

• Aggressive cloud migrations and investments in colocation spaces: Organizations are grappling with complex, high-capital expenditure requirements to interconnect global environments from multiple vendors. 

• Shifting network capacity demands: The computational and data transfer requirements of AI/ML workloads are growing at an unprecedented rate, exposing limitations in network architectures. 

• A constrained global connectivity market: The limited number of high-bandwidth providers is pushing many organizations to adopt either complex do-it-yourself (DIY) approaches, stitching together services from multiple providers, or cloud-hosted solutions that require layer 3 peering, which brings its own set of IP addressing challenges, bandwidth restrictions, and management overhead.

The result? Enterprises are faced with difficult trade-offs between performance, simplicity, and cost.

Cross-Site Interconnect: Cloud-delivered managed layer 2 connectivity

In 2023, we launched Cross-Cloud Network, making it easier to build secure and robust networks between cloud environments, deliver content globally, and connect users to their applications wherever they are. We expanded on that vision with Cloud WAN and Cross-Site Interconnect, connecting globally distributed enterprises including data center and on-premises locations. Today, we’re pleased to share that Cross-Site Interconnect is now generally available. 

We built Cross-Site Interconnect on the premise that connectivity should be as dynamic and flexible as the digital ecosystems it supports. At its core, Cross-Site Interconnect is a transparent, on-demand, layer 2 connectivity solution that leverages Google’s global infrastructure, letting you simplify, augment and improve your reliability posture across the WAN for high-performance and high-bandwidth connectivity use cases. But it doesn’t stop there.

Global enterprise connectivity reimagined 

Traditional network expansion involves massive capital expenditures, complex procurement processes, and extended deployment timelines. With Cross-Site Interconnect, Google Cloud becomes the first major cloud provider to offer transparent layer 2 connectivity over its network, therefore disrupting the current connectivity landscape.

Consider the following Cross-Site Interconnect advantages:

1. Abstracted resiliency: In a traditional model, organizations with multiple unprotected services from different providers often require detailed maps and lower-level information about their circuits to minimize shared risk and avoid single points of failure in their networks. They also need to model risks of simultaneous failures, overlapping maintenance windows, and mean-times-to-resolution (MTTR). Finally, they need to build monitoring, detection and reaction mechanisms into their topologies in order to meet their availability targets. In contrast, with Cross-Site Interconnect, you specify your WAN resiliency needs in the abstract, and Google Cloud stands behind them with an SLA.
2. Simplicity and flexibility: As a transparent layer 2 service, Cross-Site Interconnect makes it easy to accommodate current network architectures. You can still build traffic engineering capabilities, adopt active/active or active/passive patterns, or even leverage Cross-Site Interconnect to augment existing network assets, all without changing your operating model, or worrying about IP addressing overlaps.
3. Pay for what you need: Cross-Site Interconnect applies a cloud consumption model to network assets, so there are no significant upfront infrastructure investments. Further, consumption-based pricing eliminates setup fees, non-recurring charges, and long-term commitments. Rather than overprovisioning to meet anticipated business demands, now you can optimize costs by paying only for the network resources you use.
4. Optimized infrastructure: With Cross-Site Interconnect, you can decouple your port speeds from your WAN bandwidth, and your last-mile connections from the middle-mile that is delivered over the Google global backbone. You can also maximize the value of your last-mile investments to reach multiple destinations: using ‘VLAN mode’, simply leverage the same port in your central location to establish connections to multiple destinations.

And because Cross-Site Interconnect is built on Google’s extensive footprint of terrestrial and submarine cables, its globally distributed edge locations, and its next-generation network innovations, it offers:

1. Network reliability: With multiple redundant paths, automatic failover mechanisms, and proactive monitoring, the underlying infrastructure is built to withstand failures. Google’s network is built over more than 3.2 million kilometers of fiber and 34 subsea cables, delivering Cross-Site Interconnect to customers in 100s of Cloud Interconnect PoPs, ensuring 99.95% SLA that doesn’t exclude events such as cable cuts or maintenance. Cross-Site Interconnect abstracts this resilient infrastructure, letting you leverage it as a service. No need to manage complex failover configurations or worry about individual link outages — the network intelligently routes traffic around disruptions, for continuous connectivity between sites.
2. Strong security: As a cloud-delivered layer 2 overlay, Cross-Site Interconnect lets you build layer 2 adjacencies over long-haul connections. That enables the configuration of MACsec (or other line-rate, layer 2 encryption mechanisms) between remote routers, promoting end-to-end encryption with customer-controlled keys. 
3. Performance transparency: While Cross-Site Interconnect abstracts failure detection and mitigation, it also exposes the key metrics that network operators need to maintain their environment’s end-to-end availability. With probers that continuously monitor the service, Cross-Site Interconnect exposes data via intuitive dashboards and APIs, so you can monitor network characteristics like latency, packet loss, and bandwidth utilization.
4. Programmable consumption: Cross-Site Interconnect’s consumption model is designed to align with your evolving needs. You can dynamically scale your bandwidth up or down as required, automating network management and incorporating network connectivity into your infrastructure-as-code workflows. This programmability empowers agility and cost optimization, so you only pay for what you need, when you need it.

A spectrum of use cases

Whether you’re looking to augment network capacity, increase reliability, or expand to new locations, Cross-Site Interconnect is a transformative solution that solves critical challenges across diverse industry verticals.

Take, for example, financial institutions, where lower network latency translates directly into competitive advantage. With its consistent and predictable performance and enhanced disaster recovery capabilities, Cross-Site Interconnect helps financial services organizations increase their agility with on-demand network builds, and streamline their operations with fully managed global network connectivity.

“A scalable and stable network is essential for our business operations and powers the data transfers that fuel our research and market responsiveness. Our long-haul Cross-Site Interconnect pilot over the past few months has proved to be quite stable and reliable. We look forward to using Cross-Site Interconnect to further enhance the stability of our global network footprint.” – Chris Dee, Head of Cloud Platform Engineering, Citadel

Other highly regulated industries offering mission critical services also value Cross-Site Interconnect for its unique reliability and security capabilities. For instance, telecommunication providers can use it to expand to new geographies; model builders can quickly and dynamically augment their bandwidth to enable their business needs; enterprises can increase their reliability posture thanks to its convenient handoff in colocation facilities, dynamic bandwidth allocation, consistent, high-bandwidth data transfers, and industry-leading reliability. 

The future of global connectivity is here

Cross-Site Interconnect is a unique and compelling solution for businesses seeking reliable, flexible, and transparent connectivity between their global data centers. By abstracting away the complexities of network management and providing robust guarantees, Cross-Site Interconnect lets you focus on innovation and growth, knowing your global connectivity is in capable hands.

Ready to experience the difference? Start deploying Cross-Site Interconnect in your environment or reach out to our team at cross-site-interconnect@google.com and discover how we can elevate your global network infrastructure.