As more business-critical software migrates to the cloud, multicloud architectures are becoming increasingly popular. In order to streamline and innovate hybrid and multicloud connectivity and enable enterprises to build dispersed applications, Google Cloud introduced the Cross-Cloud Network last year. As they use AI/ML and other managed services to upgrade their infrastructure, organizations have adopted Cross-Cloud Networks to reduce operational complexity and total cost of ownership (TCO).
It is becoming more and more important to provide cost predictability for accurate budgeting and risk minimization, as well as better application experiences with assured SLAs. In order to meet these evolving demands and give your distributed apps the best network experience possible, it is introducing new Cross-Cloud Network innovations today. These recent advancements include:
- Prioritizing traffic based on industry: Cloud Interconnect application awareness
- lowering Cloud Interconnect's TCO while keeping prices constant
- Unifying Observability for Cloud Interconnect with VPC Flow Logs
- Other innovations that enhance service networking by adding more producers and programmability
Prioritizing industry-first traffic: Application awareness for Cloud Interconnect
Cloud Interconnect enables robust, high-bandwidth, SLA-backed connection to Google Cloud. Cross-Cloud Interconnect enables private and dedicated connectivity between Google and another cloud provider. They are the foundation for creating multicloud and distributed hybrid applications.Customers have historically been compelled to either drastically overprovision bandwidth or risk subpar performance during periods of high congestion since they are unable to prioritize traffic over Cloud Interconnect. This could result in increased costs, inefficient use of resources, and potential disruptions to business operations.
To meet this traffic priority requirement, Cloud Interconnect is implementing application awareness in preview. The key issue of traffic prioritizing across Cloud Interconnect can be resolved with Google Cloud's managed traffic differentiation technology, the first major cloud service provider. Application awareness enables flexibility with two policies: bandwidth share per traffic class and strict prioritization across traffic classes.
The application awareness of Cloud Interconnect provides a number of business benefits, including:
- Setting business-critical traffic as a top priority ensures that lower-priority traffic leaving Google Cloud doesn't adversely impact higher-priority traffic during cloud interconnect congestion.
- Decreased total cost of ownership (TCO): This eliminates needless connection overprovisioning and enables efficient use of Cloud Interconnect bandwidth when paired with proper capacity planning.
- This fully managed, SLA-backed solution provides peace of mind with a Google-managed solution backed by the Cloud Interconnect SLA. compares favorably to expensive, self-managed options that increase complexity, human overhead, and operating expenses, including network appliances.
lowering Cloud Interconnect's TCO while keeping prices constant
When moving to the cloud, organizations seek predictable data transfer prices. Customers who are implementing distributed apps across many environments or who are just starting their cloud adoption journey may find it challenging to estimate the costs of data transfers across hybrid and multicloud configurations. Variable pricing that is based on metered use makes this uncertainty worse.A dedicated connectivity and cross-cloud interconnect fixed-cost solution is being offered by Google Cloud. By paying a fixed hourly fee per port rather than based on the volume of traffic transferred, customers who opt for fixed pricing eliminate billing fluctuation associated with data transfer. When monthly expenses are predictable, organizations can more readily use chargeback and/or showback to improve operational efficiency.
Unifying Observability for Cloud Interconnect with VPC Flow Logs
VPC Flow Logs in Google Cloud provide flow-level information on network traffic. Network traffic can be examined for network forensics, security and compliance, cost optimization, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting using VPC Flow Logs, which record packets sent and received by virtual machines.In order to provide a dependable and intuitive observability experience, it has expanded the coverage of VPC Flow Logs to include network traffic visibility over Dedicated Interconnect, Partner Interconnect, Cross-Cloud Interconnect, and Cloud VPN. Flow log creation for subnets, VLAN attachments, and VPN tunnels now offers the same 5-tuple (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port, and protocol) granularity that is available for traffic within Google Cloud. If you have already enabled VPC Flow Logs on your subnets, then all traffic between your subnets and your on-premises and/or cross-cloud environments will also be tagged with the relevant hybrid connection metadata.
VPC Flow Logs provide ongoing insights into traffic patterns, bandwidth consumption, and traffic class performance. They also make it easier to identify certain traffic categories for prioritization when configuring or refining Cloud Interconnect's application awareness policies.
All VPC Flow Logs clients have access to Flow Analyzer, which allows you to rapidly identify and visualize your network traffic flows, including top talkers, without performing complex SQL queries. All VPC Flow Logs can also be integrated and analyzed using services from your chosen observability partner or Google Cloud services like Cloud Logging and BigQuery.
Both the VPC Flow Logs and the Flow Analyzer are available for preview for hybrid connections.
Enhancing service networking with programmability and new producers
One of the core tenets of cross-cloud networks is allowing DevOps, NetOps, and SecOps teams to efficiently deliver apps without generating issues with other teams. Applications usually need specific and tailored capabilities for security, monitoring, logging, and other areas that are not available out-of-the-box, and integrating best-of-breed serviceswhether SaaS, third-party, or customer-managed—across environments can be operationally difficult.
Introducing plugins for Cloud Load Balancing Service Extensions
The Service Extensions plugins for Application Load Balancers, which enable you to leverage WebAssembly (Wasm) to add rich changes to the networking request/response, are being previewed by Google Cloud. Service Extensions, which provide an open programmable data plane, allow you to add SaaS solutions or even your own modifications to a workload's datapath.
Service Extension plugins for load balancers enable a wide range of use cases, such as audit logging for compliance use cases, rewriting http headers or URLs to optimize traffic to your backend, protecting your apps with custom logic, and more. It also made a sizable number of sample plugins available here for many of these activities.
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