When cloud computing first landed, it was revolutionary for businesses of all sizes. It enabled them to reduce in-house infrastructure, scale their businesses without limits, and innovate faster than ever before. A major challenge holding back many companies from full adoption of the cloud however, has been a reliance on accessing cloud services via the public internet – a contended and unstable network, with security and performance vulnerabilities.
Major cloud providers set up “direct connect” products in response to this problem, working with network partners to provide dedicated Layer 2 MPLS circuits. However, none went as far as to develop products that gave businesses the self-service and smart networking capabilities with the same on-demand experience they were used to with cloud computing.