Deploying A Global Network in Minutes With Megaport (Sponsored)

·36 min·3 clips

Megaport's CTO explains how they deliver global circuits in under a minute, unlike traditional telcos.

This episode of Heavy Networking features hosts Ethan Banks and Drew Convery-Murray interviewing Cameron Daniel, the CTO of Megaport. Megaport is a network-as-a-service provider operating a global, automated network across 930 data centers in 26 countries. The conversation explores how Megaport enables on-demand, self-service provisioning of WAN circuits and cloud connectivity in under a minute. Cameron explains that while Megaport leases fiber from local providers, it operates its own physical network of switches and routers, designing for resiliency with at least two diverse paths per data center. The service supports ports from 1 to 100 gigabits and offers products like dedicated internet access, virtual cross-connects, and internet exchange peering. A key product is the Megaport Cloud Router (MCR), a fully managed virtual router that automates connections to major cloud providers like AWS and Azure. The company also offers a Virtual Edge product for deploying third-party SD-WAN or firewall appliances, such as from Palo Alto or Cisco, on its platform. Underlying the service is a Segment Routed MPLS EVPN core, which Cameron compares to a traditional telco network but with full automation. The platform provides a comprehensive API and a Terraform provider for infrastructure-as-code workflows, and it is developing a Prometheus endpoint for metrics export. While the network is transparent to encryption, carrying Ethernet frames regardless of payload, it does not natively encrypt traffic or support multiple QoS classes. Financial services customers can use a specialized Financial Services Exchange product to connect to data aggregators, though Megaport does not focus on ultra-low-latency trading. The MCR supports BGP and static routing, with features like BFD for failover, but does not allow direct CLI access, emphasizing a fully managed model. Cameron notes that using private cloud connections via Megaport can significantly reduce egress costs compared to public internet transfers. The ecosystem allows customers to connect not only to clouds and data centers but also to each other using shareable service keys, functioning similarly to an internet exchange. The tone is technical and conversational, with the hosts asking detailed engineering questions about network design, protocols, and practical use cases. Cameron provides clear, example-driven explanations of Megaport's architecture and capabilities. This episode is ideal for network architects, cloud engineers, or IT leaders interested in software-defined WAN, multi-cloud connectivity, and network automation. Listeners seeking an introductory overview of basic networking concepts or those uninterested in the technical specifics of service provider architecture might find it less engaging.

As heard by us

A sponsor-backed look at WAN automation and network-as-a-service details that stays practical.

This episode of Heavy Networking uses Megaport to show how WAN provisioning shifts when lead times drop from waiting on circuits to bringing one up in about a minute.

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Make WAN lead time feel obsolete.

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