Direct Link prerequisites

When you are ready to finalize your Direct Link order, you are asked to read and agree to the following prerequisites. You can speak with an IBM Cloud® Sales specialist at any time about these terms.

1. Each IBM Cloud Direct Link connection requires a unique order. If you require multiple connections, order a Direct Link for each connection.

2. The IBM Cloud fees for Direct Link cover the cost of service termination on the IBM Cloud infrastructure.

   You are responsible for any fees that are associated with reaching the Point of Presence (PoP) from your remote network and any cross-connects needed within the PoP facility to reach your provider.

   You (or your provider) are also responsible for buying the virtual circuit to IBM Cloud. If your provider requires that a router or other device be physically in the PoP, you are responsible for the costs that are associated with colocating that equipment as well. Confirm that your service or PoP provider can reach the Direct Link and price out the associated costs.

3. IBM Cloud will not colocate any customer equipment in our network PoPs.

4. The Direct Link service is an unprotected path into the IBM Cloud environment. If you require redundancy through the Direct Link service, you can purchase two separate Direct link connections in a single IBM Cloud network PoP on two separate routers, or you can order two single connections into two geographically diverse Direct Link PoP locations. It is your responsibility to configure the routing protocols to ensure resiliency between the two links.

5. IBM Cloud will not allow customers to backhaul traffic between their remote sites across the IBM Cloud backbone.

   The Direct Link product is meant for your remote networks to be able to privately communicate with your IBM Cloud infrastructure.

6. Direct Link Dedicated only: After you confirm that your circuit reached the Direct Link PoP, you must place an order with the service provider to extend service to the Direct Link Demarcation point.

   IBM supplies a Letter of Authorization/Connecting Facility Assignment (LOA/CFA) with port information to order the cross connect.

   Note: Direct Link Dedicated is a switchport in access mode. Currently, 802.1q is not supported.

7. Be aware if you use Classic IaaS, that infrastructure uses the 10.x.x.x network and you cannot overlap your on-premises hosts within IBM Cloud or with the IBM Cloud services network (10.0.0.0/14, 10.198.0.0/15, and 10.200.0.0/14).

8. Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) is not compatible with IBM Cloud SSL and IPsec VPN services. An alternative is to use the Direct Link itself for management of your servers, or run your own VPN solution (such as a Vyatta) that can be configured with different types of VPNs. Your account must be migrated to VRF before you can enable a Direct Link Classic virtual connection. Failure to migrate account can result in packet loss interruption.

   After migrating to a VRF, SSL VPN typically works when a VPN connection is made to the same data center location as the compute that's being accessed, but does not allow access globally.

9. Direct Link Cloud requires Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to implement routes to a customer's remote network.

10. If you choose to use auto-assign IP addressing, IBM will assign two IP addresses from this network, 169.254.0.0/16 for the BGP point-to-point addresses.

    IBM will use the first IP address in the /30 subnet. The customer can use the second IP address from this subnet.