Amazon has announced the general availability of AWS Interconnect – multicloud, a managed private connectivity service designed to connect Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (Amazon VPC) directly to VPCs on other cloud providers. The company is also introducing AWS Interconnect – last mile, a new feature that simplifies the establishment of high-speed, private connections to AWS from branch offices, data centers, and remote locations via existing network providers.
According to Amazon, enterprises are increasingly operating workloads across multiple cloud providers to leverage specialized services, meet data residency requirements, or support teams standardized on different providers. Traditionally, connecting these environments has involved significant coordination, including managing VPN tunnels, working with colocation facilities, and configuring third-party network fabrics. AWS Interconnect aims to alleviate these challenges by providing a managed connectivity service that simplifies connections into AWS.
AWS Interconnect facilitates private, high-speed network connections with dedicated bandwidth to and from AWS across hybrid and multicloud environments. Through the AWS Console, users can configure resilient, end-to-end connectivity by selecting their location, partner, or cloud provider, preferred Region, and bandwidth requirements. This removes the complexity of partner discovery and manual network configurations.
The service includes two capabilities: multicloud connectivity between AWS and other cloud providers, and last-mile connectivity between AWS and private on-premises networks. AWS Interconnect – multicloud offers a managed Layer 3 connection between AWS environments and other cloud providers, initially with Google Cloud, and with Microsoft Azure support planned for later in 2026. Traffic flows over the AWS global backbone and the partner cloud’s private network, avoiding the public internet to ensure predictable latency and consistent throughput.
Security features include IEEE 802.1AE MACsec encryption on the physical links between AWS routers and the partner cloud provider’s routers. Resiliency is built in, with each connection spanning multiple logical links across at least two physical facilities. AWS Interconnect – multicloud integrates with Amazon CloudWatch, providing a Network Synthetic Monitor to track round-trip latency, packet loss, and bandwidth utilization metrics.
AWS has published the underlying specification on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license, encouraging collaboration with AWS Interconnect – multicloud. Cloud providers must implement the technical specification and meet AWS operational requirements to become partners.
AWS Interconnect – last mile allows users to connect on-premises or remote locations to AWS through a participating network provider’s last-mile infrastructure directly from the AWS Management Console. The onboarding process mirrors AWS Interconnect – multicloud, requiring users to select a provider, authenticate, and specify connection endpoints and bandwidth. The service automatically provisions four redundant connections across two physical locations, configures BGP routing, and activates MACsec encryption and Jumbo Frames by default.
AWS Interconnect – last mile supports bandwidths from 1 Gbps to 100 Gbps, adjustable from the console without reprovisioning. The service includes a 99.99% availability SLA up to the Direct Connect port and bundles CloudWatch Network Synthetic Monitor for connection health monitoring. It attaches to a Direct Connect Gateway, which connects to a Virtual Private Gateway, Transit Gateway, or AWS Cloud WAN deployment.
Pricing for both AWS Interconnect – multicloud and AWS Interconnect – last mile is based on a flat hourly rate for the capacity requested, billed prorata by the hour. AWS Interconnect – multicloud pricing varies by region pair. It is currently available in five region pairs, with Microsoft Azure support expected in 2026. AWS Interconnect – last mile is launching in US East (N. Virginia) with Lumen as the initial partner, with additional partners and regions planned.
To begin using AWS Interconnect, users can visit the AWS Direct Connect console and select AWS Interconnect from the navigation menu.