Google Cloud announced general availability of its cloud-managed connectivity service.

Cross-Site Interconnect (CSI) is a managed data layer connectivity offering designed to simplify global WAN architectures. The Layer-2 (L2) solution extends Ethernet connectivity between on-premises facilities, colocation sites, and Google Cloud regions using Google’s private backbone. This potentially enables organizations to link distributed environments over a global network, while preserving VLAN structures and IP addressing schemes.

With the solution, Google Cloud claimed to be the first hyperscaler to offer transparent L2 connectivity over its network.

The service builds on Google’s Cross-Cloud Network and Cloud WAN solutions by allowing organizations to interconnect their sites over a fully managed L2 fabric. The provider-managed service is able to automatically configure multiple redundant paths, implement failover mechanisms, and perform proactive monitoring. Users specify WAN resiliency specs in the abstract, with operations backed by a 99.95% service-level agreement (SLAs) from Google.

A Google decoupling

The vendor claimed CSI differentiates from traditional connectivity models that rely on separate middle-mile and last-mile arrangements by decoupling the two. As such, CSI allows a single port to reach multiple destinations across its 3.2 million-kilometer network, which includes more than 34 subsea cables, potentially allowing for both high bandwidth and simplified operations.

The platform integrates with infrastructure-as-code workflows, allowing network teams to programmatically manage and automate connectivity through APIs. This is coupled with visibility into performance metrics such as latency, packet loss, and throughput. It also allows optional encryption at the L2 layer through custom control of media access control security (MACsec), an industry standard security tool for Ethernet traffic that executes the encryption function in the physical layer (PHY) of the Ethernet port.

CSI can also present key metrics through dashboards and APIs, enabling observation of network properties such as latency, packet loss, and bandwidth consumption.

With its pitch, Google Cloud singled out financial institution use cases in maintaining deterministic latency between data centers. Google also suggested telecom providers could employ CSI to extend infrastructure into new regions or interconnect existing colocation assets.

The solution presents an alternative to Microsoft’s ExpressRoute Direct, which allows customers to connect their data centers across Microsoft’s global network as an alternative to relying on a carrier network, and Amazon Web Services’ AWS Direct Connect, which allows users to establish a private, physical network connection between Amazon’s cloud and their data center, office, or colocation environment.