All 7 AWS Direct Connect & Hybrid Connectivity questions
More in AWS Direct Connect & Hybrid Connectivity
What is AWS Direct Connect and how does it differ from connecting to AWS over the public internet? What is a Virtual Private Gateway, and how does it relate to establishing hybrid connectivity with a VPC? How can Direct Connect and Site to Site VPN be combined to provide a highly available hybrid connectivity design? What is a Direct Connect Gateway, and how does it simplify connecting a single Direct Connect connection to multiple VPCs across different regions? How does Direct Connect support Link Aggregation Groups to increase bandwidth and provide additional resilience? How does AWS Transit Gateway simplify complex hybrid network architectures involving many VPCs and on premises connections?
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How does a Site to Site VPN connection provide a quicker, lower cost alternative to Direct Connect for hybrid connectivity?

Intermediate

Answer

A Site to Site VPN connection establishes an encrypted tunnel over the public internet between your on premises network and your VPC, which can typically be set up within minutes or hours rather than the weeks sometimes required to physically provision a Direct Connect connection, making it a practical choice for organizations that need hybrid connectivity quickly or whose data transfer volume does not justify the dedicated infrastructure of Direct Connect.
aws ec2 create-vpn-connection --type ipsec.1 --customer-gateway-id cgw-12345678 --vpn-gateway-id vgw-12345678
Real-world example A company urgently needing hybrid connectivity for a new project sets up a Site to Site VPN within a single afternoon, later transitioning to a Direct Connect connection for improved performance once the long term infrastructure need becomes clear.

Common follow-ups: Can Direct Connect and Site to Site VPN be used together for redundancy?;What throughput limitations does a Site to Site VPN typically have compared to Direct Connect?

VPC & Networking;AWS Backup & Disaster Recovery
All 7 AWS Direct Connect & Hybrid Connectivity questions