Google Cloud’s application awareness on Cloud Interconnect lets customers give different treatment to outbound traffic during congestion by assigning packets to classes based on their DSCP markings. For traffic between Google Cloud and another cloud provider, the relevant connection is Cross-Cloud Interconnect. Customers can choose strict priority or bandwidth-percentage policies; the feature does not identify applications automatically.
What application awareness does
Application awareness reads the differentiated services code point (DSCP) in outbound packet headers and maps traffic into six classes. It controls how traffic uses Cloud Interconnect bandwidth, particularly when the connection is congested. It does not infer an application’s identity: the packet’s DSCP marking determines its class. Google also distinguishes this feature from App Hub’s application data model. See Google’s traffic differentiation configuration guide.
| Class | DSCP range | Typical traffic |
|---|---|---|
| TC1 | 0–7 | Best effort |
| TC2 | 8–15 | Bulk traffic, such as file transfers |
| TC3 | 16–23 | Operations, administration, and management traffic, such as SNMP, SSH, ping, and telnet |
| TC4 | 24–31 | Streaming or live video |
| TC5 | 32–47 | Interactive or user-facing traffic |
| TC6 | 48–63 | Essential network control traffic, including BGP and BFD |
Choose how classes share bandwidth
The policy determines what happens when traffic competes for constrained interconnect capacity. Both policy types can be used with shaping controls that cap a class’s maximum bandwidth.
| Policy | Behavior during congestion | Operational consideration |
|---|---|---|
| Strict priority | Classes have predefined precedence: TC6 is highest and TC1 is lowest. | Google recommends shaping higher-priority classes so they cannot starve lower-priority traffic. |
| Bandwidth percentage | Each class has a target bandwidth share. If a class uses less than its share, excess bandwidth is shared equally among the other classes. | Use shaping to set a class’s maximum use and manage competition among classes. |
Protect network control traffic
Google recommends putting network control traffic such as BGP and BFD in the highest strict-priority class to help prevent network failure. Before enabling a policy, operators should check that packets carry the intended DSCP markings and that their capacity assumptions are sound. A priority policy cannot compensate for incorrect markings or insufficient capacity.
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How Cross-Cloud Interconnect fits
Cloud Interconnect includes Dedicated Interconnect, Partner Interconnect, and Cross-Cloud Interconnect. Cross-Cloud Interconnect connects a Google Cloud VPC to a network in another cloud over a direct physical connection between the providers’ networks. Google’s product guidance lists AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Alibaba Cloud as example destinations; partner-mediated connection options also exist for some cloud paths. Consult Google’s network connectivity product selection guide to compare connection types.
Interconnect traffic does not traverse the public internet, but that alone does not mean it is encrypted. Google documents HA VPN over Cloud Interconnect as an option for adding IPsec encryption. The Cloud Interconnect overview describes the service and its traffic-differentiation context.
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Enablement and the separate Preview feature
Google’s traffic differentiation guide says customers should contact their account team to enable application awareness and recommends redundant connections with sufficient capacity. Its configuration documentation explains policy setup, but customers should confirm enablement and deployment details with their account team.
Google separately documents managed traffic classification, which is explicitly marked Preview and describes network policies that automate assignment of DSCP bits to outgoing packets. Do not treat that automation as the same feature as application-awareness policies, which classify traffic according to DSCP markings.
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What Google says the feature is intended to improve
Google introduced application awareness in Preview and describes it as a way to keep lower-priority traffic egressing Google Cloud from adversely affecting higher-priority traffic during congestion, while improving bandwidth utilization when capacity is planned appropriately. These are Google’s stated aims, not independently established performance measurements or guaranteed savings. The announcement also quotes IDC research manager Taranvir Singh describing broad applicability across traffic types and potential infrastructure resiliency and cost savings; that is Singh’s assessment, not a measured result for this feature. See Google’s Cross-Cloud Network enhancements announcement.
Google’s 2023 Cross-Cloud Interconnect announcement reported two IDC findings from studies conducted in 2022: 64% of customers were using multiple cloud providers for public cloud IaaS services, and 79% indicated a need to simplify and unify management and security of dedicated cloud infrastructure. Those figures describe multicloud context, not application-awareness adoption or performance. Source: Google’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect announcement.
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