Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/07/10/aws_adds_second_sydney_direct_connect_site/

AWS adds second Sydney direct connect site and puts Melbourne on CloudFront

Global Switch joins Equinix in the cloudy connection club

By Simon Sharwood

Posted in SaaS, 10th July 2014 00:57 GMT

Amazon Web Services has revealed it has flicked the switch on a new Sydney site for its direct connect service that allows users to build a direct network connection between their kit and The House of Bezos' cloud.

The company previously offered only Equinix Sydney 3 as a direct connect node. It has now added Global Switch's SY6 data centre, located here.

The Global Switch facility is strolling distance from Sydney's telco-infrastructure-rich central business district, so makes a fine target for a direct connect site. Which is not to say that Equinix Sydney 3 is a connectivity desert: that the streets near the data centre are pock-marked with numerous carrier pits bespeaks its location astride the path of cables landing on Sydney's south.

Adding a new direct connect location centre is therefore almost certainly a diversification by AWS, rather than any sign of discomfort with Equinix.

The announcement of the service also shows, once again, that AWS is willing to tell its customers about the location of some infrastructure. For example, it discloses the location of direct connect nodes, but won't reveal where its servers reside.

Just what then-communications-minister Stephen Conroy meant when he named Equinix Syd 3 as AWS' Australian home is therefore unknown.

The company has also announced a new location for its CloudFront and Route 53 content delivery network in Melbourne. ®