Connecting Clouds over FTTH: How Easy Can CES Be?#

Darragh Grealish (56K.Cloud), with Stefan Thoma (Init7)

• Why: Hybrid cloud connectivity usually means Direct Connect colocation, cross-connects, and intermediate carrier hops. This talk presents a materially different on-ramp — reaching cloud over mass-market FTTH — and pulls back the curtain on the L2 service (Ethernet7) that makes it work, including real constraints an architect needs to know before designing on top of it.
• What: How Init7's Ethernet7 (EVP-LAN, MEF E-LAN MP2MP) extends across their P2P FTTH access network (400+ regional PoPs, 2.5M+ ports) to CSP interconnects at datacenters where Init7 is already present — collapsing the classic multi-hop Direct Connect chain into a single provider L2 domain. The deck includes a worked AWS Direct Connect example, an air-gapped AI/data-to-cloud use case running RDMA over RoCE with MACsec, a FINMA-regulated banking B2B deployment, and dual-site/dual-link HA designs — plus the actual order-to-provision process (OTO installation, validation, ~2 weeks to service).
• How: Ethernet7 runs on Cisco Catalyst 9500 platforms, with BGP EVPN via Init7 route reflectors exchanging L2 information and VXLAN (UDP 4789) encapsulating frames across the fabric, MTU 9100. Customer-side L3 sits on a custom gateway above the L2 service; cloud ports are cross-connected directly to Init7 equipment in DCs.
• Where applicable: Init7/Europe-specific (Swiss FTTH plant, specific PoP/DC footprint) and partly a joint service pitch for ACP Cloud Connect and Init7 Direct Cloud Access. But the service constraints are broadly instructive for anyone evaluating L2 cloud on-ramps: no QinQ, one VLAN per L2 domain, VLAN IDs provider-managed, max 3 MAC addresses per VLAN, CPE managed by customer/partner. Those limits shape which designs (e.g. simple gateway-on-top vs. richer L2 extension) are feasible on any similar EVP-LAN service.