Megaport joins AWS direct connect provider ranks

Network interconnection provider Megaport will offer customers cloud solutions from Amazon Web Services in three Australian cities via its new Megaport Interconnection Platform.

Megaport founder Bevan Slattery.

Speaking to iTnews, Megaport's founder and chief executive Bevan Slattery said his company set up the first direct connect service yesterday, which provides a connection to AWS' cloud services.

Enterprise customers wanting to connect to AWS can do so for free up to six months, as part of a limited Megaport offer. The connections are available in 11 data centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with a further 19 coming online in the first quarter of next year.

"We're confident about our service offering, so much so that there's no term required," Slattery said.

Experts from both Megaport and Amazon Web Services will be speaking at the Australian Data Centre Strategy Summit at the Gold Coast Marriott on March 18-20. Tickets are still available.

In metropolitan Sydney, the free service offers speeds up to 10 gigabit/s per second, but in other areas such as Brisbane, the speed is limited to 100 megabit/s due to required interstate connectivity.

After six months, the charges are $500/month per 10Gbps port and $200/month for the virtual interconnect, Slattery said.

The minimum requirement for customers wanting to use the service is a 10Gbps port on an Ethernet switch.

According to Slattery, the minimum requirement ensures Megaport can offer the bandwidth required for flexible service.

The term for connections can be as long or short as customers like, Slattery said.

"If you want a 10Gbps service for a day to put your data into Amazon's Glacier [tape-based storage], we can do that for $20," he told iTnews.

"Then you can do it again some other time, when you need to connect, as Megaport offers that level of flexibility for customers who can dial up bandwidth as required."

Megaport's offering is application programming interface (API) driven, and customers have a choice of using either the company's web portal or the API.

"This is how we designed Megaport, as a full Networking-as-a-Service offering that is scalable and flexible," Slattery said.