Cross-Cloud Network: Design global distributed applications at scale

Interested in learning how to simplify your distributed application architecture with Cross-Cloud Network, for connecting, securing, and delivering applications across on-premises, Google Cloud, and third-party cloud environments? The newly published Cross-Cloud Networking for distributed applications section of the Cloud Architecture Center offers a comprehensive guide to designing and implementing a robust cross-cloud environment. In this blog we will look at some of the benefits of the Cross-Cloud Network and take a peek into the architecture documents.

Use case recap

In the blog Cross-Cloud Network: Private, customizable and flexible networking we touched briefly on three common use cases of this platform. These were:

• Building distributed applications  

• Internet facing application and content delivery 

• Hybrid workforce 

Architecture guides

To help you along your journey the “Cross-Cloud Networking for distributed applications” design guide provides in depth knowledge. This guide was written by several Google experts and is broken down into four documents. Each of these dive into different patterns and designs based on various use cases. The documents are as follows:

• Cross-Cloud Networking for distributed applications (overview)

• Network Segmentation and connectivity for distributed applications in Cross-Cloud Network

• Service networking for distributed applications in Cross-Cloud Network

• Network Security for distributed applications in Cross-Cloud Network

The design guide is meant to serve as your main reference to assist you in evaluating all pertinent considerations and point you to reference architectures that describe how to deploy recommended patterns. You can utilize these recommendations as a guide, samples or building blocks for designing, researching or planning your network. As with all things architecture, you have a varying degree of flexibility in what the final design will look like.

Example pattern 

Let's take a quick look at one of the designs highlighted in the document Network segmentation and connectivity.

This shows a key feature called reachability between on-prem and other cloud environments with a transit VPC being used. In this transit VPC all the connections to on-prem and other clouds are terminated. Other VPCs can connect via Cloud VPN, Network Connectivity Center, or VPC network peering to the centralized transit VPC. Cloud Routers are placed in different regions and facilitate the exchange of routes between connected sources.

Learn more today

Dive deeper into the Cross-Cloud Network for distributed application architecture guides today. You can also learn more about Cross-Cloud Network with the following resources:

• Solution page: Cross-Cloud Network 

• IDC whitepaper: Accelerating the Enterprise AI Journey with Cross-Cloud Network

• Next’24 presentation video: How to design a cloud network for apps and services in multi- or hybrid clouds

• Demo video: Service-Centric Cross-Cloud Network

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