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Cloud Connect is a dedicated network circuit between your MacStadium environment and a public cloud provider. Traffic between your Macs and your cloud resources travels over a private circuit, provided through Lumen, instead of over the public internet or a site-to-site VPN. Cloud Connect is different from the Network Firewalls Cloud Connect VPN, which is a remote-access VPN for connecting to your firewall from your own computer.

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When to use Cloud Connect

Consider Cloud Connect when:
  • You move large amounts of data between MacStadium and your cloud, for example build artifacts, caches, or container images.
  • You need consistent latency and throughput between your Macs and services running in your cloud.
  • Your traffic to the cloud is outgrowing what a site-to-site VPN through your firewall can carry.
  • You want dedicated bandwidth instead of a VPN that shares your firewall and the public internet.
Cloud Connect traffic goes directly to the circuit and doesn’t pass through your MacStadium firewall. Your firewall’s site-to-site VPN can stay in place as a backup path. Cloud providers usually charge less for data transferred over a dedicated connection than over the internet, so Cloud Connect can also lower your cloud egress costs. Check your provider’s pricing for dedicated connections. For lower-volume connections, a site-to-site VPN is usually enough. See Connect third-party clouds to MacStadium.

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How Cloud Connect works

  • MacStadium provisions a dedicated circuit through Lumen from the MacStadium data center to your cloud provider’s dedicated connection service: AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, Google Cloud Interconnect, or Oracle Cloud FastConnect.
  • One Cloud Connect circuit can reach several cloud providers at once, for example AWS and Google Cloud, and several networks within a provider, such as multiple AWS VPCs or Azure VNets. Each cloud connection is its own dedicated Ethernet virtual circuit, sized to the bandwidth you order, up to 10 Gbps. Available sizes vary by region and cloud provider. You can increase bandwidth later without interrupting service. Your account manager can confirm which options are available.
  • Traffic travels over the carrier’s private network between the MacStadium data center and the cloud provider, and doesn’t cross the public internet.
  • On MacStadium’s network, your Cloud Connect traffic is kept in its own routing domain, separate from other customers.
  • Routes are exchanged over BGP. You advertise the cloud network ranges your Macs need to reach, and MacStadium advertises your MacStadium host networks.
  • Cloud Connect uses a single circuit. For a backup path, keep the site-to-site VPN on your MacStadium firewall, which runs over MacStadium’s internet connection.
  • Cloud Connect connects MacStadium to your clouds. Routing traffic between two cloud providers over Cloud Connect isn’t offered.

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Availability

Cloud Connect is available in the Las Vegas and Atlanta data centers. Contact MacStadium to confirm availability for your environment.

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Set up Cloud Connect

1

Order the circuit

Contact your MacStadium account manager or MacStadium support with the bandwidth you need and your cloud provider. Pricing and lead times come from sales.
2

Send your cloud account details

MacStadium needs one identifier to send the connection request:
  • AWS: your AWS account ID
  • Google Cloud: your Partner Interconnect pairing key
  • Azure: your ExpressRoute service key
  • Oracle Cloud: your Oracle Cloud Identifier (OCID)
3

Accept the connection and set up peering

Accept MacStadium’s connection request in your cloud provider’s console, then create the BGP peering on your side. Send MacStadium your BGP details: your ASN, your peer IP address, and an MD5 authentication key if you use one. MacStadium can use the local ASN and BGP communities you specify.
4

Exchange network ranges

Send MacStadium the cloud network ranges (CIDR blocks) to accept from you. MacStadium sends you the MacStadium host network ranges to accept on your side. Both sides use these lists to filter BGP routes.
5

Verify the connection

MacStadium verifies connectivity over the circuit and brings up the BGP session with your cloud.

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Monitor your circuit

Use your cloud provider’s metrics for the connection, for example Google Cloud Interconnect attachment metrics or AWS Direct Connect virtual interface metrics, to see traffic and BGP status. To confirm traffic on MacStadium’s side of the circuit, contact MacStadium support.