AWS Direct Connect

 

• Using Direct Connect, data can now be delivered through a private network connection between AWS and your datacenter or corporate network.
• Direct Connect links your internal network to a Direct Connect location over a standard Ethernet fiber-optic cable. One end of the cable is connected to your router, the other to a Direct Connect router. With this connection, you can create virtual interfaces directly to public AWS services or to Amazon VPC.
• 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and 100 Gbps connections are available.
• Supports hosted connection capacities of 1, 2, 5 and 10 Gbps. 1, 2, 5 and 10 Gbps hosted connections will provide customers with higher capacities that were previously only available via dedicated connections.
• Amazon Direct Connect also supports AWS Transit Gateway, aside from configuring Site-to-Site VPN connections. With this feature, customers can connect thousands of Amazon VPCs in multiple AWS Regions to their on-premises networks using 1/2/5/10 Gbps AWS Direct Connect connections.

Beneficial Use Cases

• • When transferring large data sets.
  • When developing and using applications that use real-time data feeds.
  • When building hybrid environments that satisfy regulatory requirements requiring the use of private connectivity.

Setting Up Methods

Port speed	Method
1 Gbps or higher	Connect directly to an AWS device from your router at an AWS Direct Connect location.
1 Gbps or higher	Work with a partner in the AWS Partner Network or a network provider to connect a router from your data center, office, or colocation environment to an AWS Direct Connect location. The network provider does not have to be a member of the APN to connect you.
Less than 1 Gbps	Work with a partner in the AWS Partner Network who can create a hosted connection for you. Sign up for AWS and then follow the instructions to accept your hosted connection.

Components

• • Connections – Create a connection in an AWS Direct Connect location to establish a network connection from your premises to an AWS Region. From Direct Connect you can connect to all AZs within the region.
  • Virtual interfaces – Create a virtual interface to enable access to AWS services. A public virtual interface enables access to public services, such as S3. A private virtual interface enables access to your VPC.
• To access public resources in a remote Region, you must set up a public virtual interface and establish a Border Gateway Protocol session.
• You can create a Direct Connect gateway in any public Region. Use it to connect your Direct Connect connection over a private virtual interface to VPCs in your account that are located in different Regions.
• To provide for failover, request and configure two dedicated connections to AWS. These connections can terminate on one or two routers in your network. There are different configuration choices available:
  • Active/Active (BGP multipath) – This is the default configuration, where both connections are active. If one connection becomes unavailable, all traffic is routed through the other connection.
  • Active/Passive (failover) – One connection is handling traffic, and the other is on standby. If the active connection becomes unavailable, all traffic is routed through the passive connection.
• Autonomous System numbers (ASN) are used to identify networks that present a clearly defined external routing policy to the Internet.

Cross Connects

• • After you have downloaded your Letter of Authorization and Connecting Facility Assignment (LOA-CFA), you must complete your cross-network connection, also known as a cross connect.
  • If you already have equipment located in a Direct Connect location, contact the appropriate provider to complete the cross connect.
  • If you do not already have equipment located in a Direct Connect location, you can work with one of the partners in the AWS Partner Network to help you to connect to an AWS Direct Connect location.

Virtual Interfaces

• • You must create a virtual interface to begin using your Direct Connect connection.
  • You can configure multiple virtual interfaces on a single AWS Direct Connect connection.
    • For private virtual interfaces, you need one private virtual interface for each VPC to connect to from the AWS Direct Connect connection, or you can use a AWS Direct Connect gateway.
  • Prerequisites
    • Connection: The Direct Connect connection or link aggregation group for which you are creating the virtual interface.
    • Virtual interface name: A name for the virtual interface.
    • Virtual interface owner
    • (Private virtual interface only) Connection to
    • VLAN: A unique virtual local area network tag that’s not already in use on your connection.
    • Address family: Whether the BGP peering session will be over IPv4 or IPv6.
    • Peer IP addresses: A virtual interface can support a BGP peering session for IPv4, IPv6, or one of each (dual-stack). You cannot create multiple BGP sessions for the same IP addressing family on the same virtual interface
    • BGP information: A public or private Border Gateway Protocol Autonomous System Number for your side of the BGP session, and an MD5 BGP authentication key.
    • (Public virtual interface only) Prefixes you want to advertise: Public IPv4 routes or IPv6 routes to advertise over BGP. You must advertise at least one prefix using BGP.
  • The maximum transmission unit (MTU) of a network connection is the size, in bytes, of the largest permissible packet that can be passed over the connection. The MTU of a virtual private interface can be either 1500 or 9001 (jumbo frames). The MTU of a transit virtual interface for VPC Transit Gateways associated with Direct Connect gateways can be either 1500 or 8500 (jumbo frames). A public virtual interface doesn’t support jumbo frames.
  • Jumbo frames are supported on virtual private interfaces attached to a virtual private gateway or a Direct Connect gateway. Jumbo frames apply only to propagated routes from Direct Connect.

Link Aggregation Groups (LAG)

• • A logical interface that uses the Link Aggregation Control Protocol to aggregate multiple connections at a single Direct Connect endpoint, allowing you to treat them as a single, managed connection.
  • All connections in the LAG must use the same bandwidth.
  • You can have a maximum of four connections in a LAG. Each connection in the LAG counts towards your overall connection limit for the Region.
  • All connections in the LAG must terminate at the same Direct Connect endpoint.
  • Can aggregate up to 4 Direct Connect ports into a single connection using LAG.
  • All connections in a LAG operate in Active/Active mode.
  • It will only be available for dedicated 1G and 10G connections.

Direct Connect Gateways

• • Use a Direct Connect gateway to connect your Direct Connect connection over a private virtual interface to one or more VPCs in your account that are located in the same or different Regions.
  • It is a globally available resource.
  • Direct Connect gateway also enables you to connect between your on-premises networks and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) in any commercial AWS Region except in China regions.
  • Prior to multi-account support, you could only associate Amazon VPCs with a Direct Connect gateway in the same AWS account. With the launch of multi-account support for Direct Connect gateway, you can associate up to 10 Amazon VPCs from multiple accounts with a Direct Connect gateway. The VPCs must be owned by AWS Accounts that belong to the same AWS payer account ID.

Security

• • Use IAM for controlling access.

Monitoring

• • You can optionally assign tags to your Direct Connect resources to categorize or manage them. A tag consists of a key and an optional value, both of which you define.
  • CloudTrail captures all API calls for AWS Direct Connect as events.
  • Set up CloudWatch alarms to monitor metrics.

Pricing

• • You pay only for the network ports you use and the data you transfer over the connection.
  • Pricing is per port-hour consumed for each port type. Data transfer out over AWS Direct Connect is charged per GB. Data transfer IN is $0.00 per GB in all locations.