KVH is now offering dedicated Ethernet connections to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Hong Kong and Singapore through its Direct Connect (DCNet) Service. The AWS Direct Connect Service is being delivered through locally based data centers, which form part of the DCNet Network of more than 75 data centers across Asia.
“Many enterprise customers are running cloud services and they are looking for a secure and private connection. On the other side, cloud providers are looking for some form of private connection to connect their public cloud to the enterprise customers,” said Anthony Ho, director of product management, business development division, KVH.
The recent partnership forged between the two companies in Singapore is an expansion of their nearly two-year-old AWS Direct Connect Service in Japan.
DCNet is KVH’s data center interconnect solution that provides each enterprise with its own dedicated port to plug into public cloud services such as AWS.
“AWS is one of our target applications to be launched on the DCNet Service. We have done a lot of pre-selling in Hong Kong in the last two months, and we have triggered a lot of interest among customers. They want to do some texting and they have been waiting for the launch of the service,” said Ho.
He added: “In terms of offering, we are a little bit different because we do not just provide a point-to-point connection. We give them their own port – either a 1G or a 10G port – at flexible service options.”
Companies using DCNet can choose to pay a monthly flat fee equivalent to the committed bandwidth or opt for the pay-as-you-go service with pricing based on the bandwidth consumed. In future, Ho said that the KVH will be offering a “hybrid” option where DCNet customers enjoy the combination of committed and usage based bandwidth.
Besides AWS Direct Connect, other applications on the DCNet network include:
- Connectivity to support Point-of-Presence (POP) expansion and cloud infrastructure deployment
- Web/Video content replication and distribution across various data centers
- IT Tasks: Data backup, Cloud workload balancing, software updates etc.
- Business continuity, remote backup solution for their enterprises customers
- Business expansion and for video streaming & file transfer, where bandwidth is not predictable
- Cost effective solution to connect multiple sites having different network requirements
With its DCNet Network, and with KVH now being a part of the UK-based Colt Group, the company hopes to extend its reach beyond its traditional vertical markets such as financial services and international telecom carriers to include manufacturing and media distribution sectors among others.
“With the capability now to connect to the cloud platform, our addressable market will be bigger as companies in different industries can use this connectivity solution. DCNet aims to create an ecosystem which is vendor-neutral to add value to both customers and partners.”
Currently, KVH has about 2,000 enterprise customers, many of whom have regional or global operations.