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I have a VPS (an EC2 instance) running on AWS-Ireland. I would like to minimise the latency of traffic between this instance and a service provider that has their servers at a third-party data centres (in this case - LD4).

AWS provides a cross-connect - but it seems that this is only applicable if I have some infrastructure at LD4 and at AWS. I want to minimise the latency between my AWS instance and a third-party server at LD4 without involving the third party.

As suggested, I'm expanding the question:

I understand AWS provides Direct Connect to a number of data centers - but, afaik, this requires my own infrastructure at the other end - then my server at AWS can communicate with my server at a Third Party Data Center over a private, low-latency network (Direct Connect).

This is not my use case. I am trying to access a third-party server at the Third Party Data Center. They will not let me use Direct Connect to them directly - but it seems like I should be able to tunnel my traffic over Direct Connect and then let the routing tables deal with the traffic locally at the Third Party Data Center. Is this achievable without having a server at the Third Party Data Center?

amrk
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    If this was an exam question the answer would be "direct connect". When you say "AWS provides a cross-connect", what exactly do you mean? AWS provides an internet connection, and lets you connect via Direct Connect from a variety of data centers. You might like to expand your question a bit, I doubt many people will know what / where LD4 is. Google suggests Slough, England. – Tim Sep 05 '20 at 20:50
  • Indeed, I'm assuming that "LD4" in the question is indeed the Equinix LD4 datacenter in Slough/London. Latency certainly ought to be much lower between that and the AWS eu-west-2 (London) region, if that can help somehow. (If you can somehow make use of that for your latency-sensitive tasks, the relative proximity of those DCs ought to do more than any leased line for your much longer distance setup.) – Håkan Lindqvist Sep 05 '20 at 21:00
  • Can you move your instance in Ireland to eu2-west, or somewhere closer? – Ron Trunk Sep 14 '20 at 17:11
  • Also you don't mention what latency numbers you're getting, but likely you're simply dealing with the distance -- *i.e.,* basic physics. – Ron Trunk Sep 14 '20 at 17:13
  • The goal is not to move resources, but to use the lowest latency infrastructure between the two data centers without co-locating machines at both. – amrk Sep 15 '20 at 12:38
  • Whatever method you use will incur additional costs for physical or virtual services. So the next question is, how much can the latency be reduced, and at what cost? It would be helpful to know what latency you are getting now. I would wager that you can't reduce the latency in any significant amount. – Ron Trunk Sep 15 '20 at 14:06

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Ultimately, the relatively long distance would appear to be the cause of your latency woes.

Some form of leased line, which I gather is what you were considering in the question, could of course help a little bit compared to Internet connectivity, but reducing the distance should be significantly more helpful (ideally you would do both).

If low-latency connectivity to this third party at "LD4" (Equinix LD4, Slough/London?) is crucially important to you, you may want to investigate options for moving your latency-critical work closer.
Ideally to "LD4" with local connectivity, of course, but if we assume that you are going to stick to AWS, then the eu-west-2 (London) region ought to have much lower latency to "LD4" (assuming that is indeed the earlier mentioned datacenter also located in the London area).

Now, of course, such a change may not be architecturally straightforward, depending on what the actual situation is. However, in all likelihood most of the current latency is inherent from the relatively long distance (divided by the speed of light).

Håkan Lindqvist
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  • Thank you for your reply Hakan. The goal is not to move resources, but to use the lowest latency infrastructure between the two data centers without co-locating machines at both. Here, specifically, I'm asking about AWS Ireland and LD4 (London/Slough as you suggested), but the question is more general ofc - any situation where I have a client at one location and want to access a third-party resource at a second location. Is this possible? – amrk Sep 11 '20 at 11:14