Release notes for Direct Link

Check back regularly to see what's new with IBM Cloud® Direct Link.

12 December 2024

Metrics routing support: You can now monitor and track metrics for Direct Link physical connections and virtual interfaces, allowing you to analyze traffic flow and set up alerts. This way, you can be notified and take appropriate action if any anomalies or unusual traffic patterns are detected. For more information, see Monitoring Direct Link.

Enable service network routes from Direct Link to non-Classic connections (Behavior Change): When a direct link is connected to a transit gateway, the direct link advertises all service network routes. Before this change, when a direct link was connected to a transit gateway, the direct link did not advertise any service network routes. For more information, see Preparing for Direct Link changes to advertised service network routes.

VLAN tagging support for Direct Link Dedicated: A VLAN keeps traffic from different networks separated when traversing shared links and devices within a topology. This process, also known as VLAN tagging, limits broadcast network traffic and secures network segments. Previously, dedicated gateway traffic could not be tagged with a VLAN. Now, a customer can optionally specify their own VLAN value either at the time of gateway creation, or update or remove it later. For more information, see Activating, deactivating, and updating VLAN tagging.

Route report enhancements

Added advertised routes to verify route filters and AS prepends applied to the Direct Link gateway.

Added “AS path” information to on-prem routes to verify AS prepends.

Support for Madrid multi-zone region (MZR)

BGP route filtering support: Configure route filters to control the inbound routes that are learned by your direct link and outbound routes that are advertised by your direct link. BGP route filtering can help reduce resource usage, influence network traffic, and add security. For more information, see About route filtering.

Generate a route report for a specific direct link: Request a route report to verify expected routes and figure out which routes are associated with attached virtual connections. This feature helps diagnose and troubleshoot routing and connectivity issues. For more information, see Generating a direct link route report.
BGP AS prepending support: Prepend one or more autonomous system numbers (ASNs) at the beginning of an AS path. Prepending an AS path makes a shorter AS path look longer and therefore less preferable to BGP. For more information, see Using AS prepends to influence route preference.

Reduced unmetered plan pricing for Direct Link Connect: IBM is pleased to announce a significant reduction in unmetered pricing for IBM Cloud Direct Link Connect and Direct Link Dedicated. Direct Link also offers a metered pricing plan, allowing you to switch between metered and unmetered pricing plans to suit your bandwidth usage needs.

VLAN mapping: A Provider can now specify their own VLAN value at the time of gateway creation, or update it later using the Direct Link Provider API. Previously, the VLAN was selected for you.

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD): Activate BFD to quickly detect faults in a network between two routers or switches that are connected by a link. BFD provides a single, standardized method for detecting link failures at any protocol layer, over any media.
More flexibility in configuring BGP values: Instead of being able to specify BGP values (ASN and IP addresses) only during initial configuration, you'll now be able to modify BGP values after direct link provisioning.

Direct Link connection support for transit gateways: Direct Link now supports Transit Gateway connections. A Direct Link connection allows an on-premises network to connect to other networks (for instance, VPC and classic infrastructure) that are connected to the same transit gateway.; The beta release for this feature ended. If you participated in this beta, you can continue to use the gateways that you created during the beta period.

BGP Message Digest 5 authentication support: Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) authentication enables routers to share information only if they can verify that they are talking to a trusted source, based on a key. TCP MD5 authentication adds an extra layer of security between BGP peers by verifying each transmitted message that is sent through a BGP session. You can store your keys in either Key Protect or Hyper Protect Crypto Services (HPCS).