NextDC beats Equinix, Global Switch to AWS Melbourne Direct Connect

NextDC's M1 facility has stolen a march on international competitors Global Switch and Equinix as the first co-location provider to go live with AWS Direct Connect in Melbourne.

The M1 facility is the first Direct Connect point of presence in the Victorian capital, joining existing services in two Sydney data centres: Global Switch and Equinix SY3.

The arrival of AWS Direct Connect in Melbourne delivers "important geo-redundancy for service durability", according to NextDC.

Currently only three service provider partners are offering AWS Direct Connect services out of NextDC M1: Telstra, Optus and NTT.

The arrival of Direct Connect in Melbourne gives customers another option to get dedicated connections to AWS cloud services.

NextDC also operates its AXONVX service out of its own and third-party data centres to allow dedicated, private connections to public cloud services, including AWS and Microsoft. The AXONVX virtual exchange has network locations in multiple facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.

According to NextDC, customers hosted outside of the three current AWS Direct Connect facilities can use AXONVX to "leverage inter-capital services and secure elastic connections" to AWS.

A NextDC spokesperson told CRN the pros and cons of Direct Connect versus AXONVS depend on the customer’s location. "If a customer has racks in M1 and is looking to interconnect with AWS at 1 or 10 Gb/s, they will generally choose to use a physical cross connect.

"If the customer is located outside of M1 or they are ordering a circuit that is 500 Mb/s or less, the best option is AXONVX, which can deliver the service to 38 data centres in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, the ACT and Western Australia."

NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie said: “The fact that AWS chose M1 data centre to host a Direct Connect point-of-presence is a testament to the world-class quality of the facility and the strength of our customer and partner ecosystem.

"We’re very pleased to see NextDC join the select group of the world’s leading co-location providers chosen by AWS to host a Direct Connect location."