Direct Link Connect for Power Virtual Servers

Before you begin

Before you order Direct Link Connect, make sure that you review the following considerations and have satisfied any prerequisites:

• Verify that your IBM Cloud account has the correct authorizations to order the Direct Link (2.0) Connect service.
• Review Direct Link prerequisites. Also, review Routing considerations, and Setting up high availability, as needed for your particular deployment.
• IBM Cloud highly recommends that you establish a second, diverse direct link to prevent outages, whether unplanned, or planned due to maintenance.
• A 10 Gbps connection is available only using the Direct Link (2.0) Connect offering.
• Direct Link (2.0) Connect is available in all current locations.
• Currently, there isn't a migration path from Direct Link on Classic (1.0) to Direct Link (2.0). You must order a new Direct Link (2.0) Connect connection.

Pricing

The Power Virtual Server offering includes a highly available connection to IBM Cloud services at no cost for each customer per data center. You can also select the global routing option for these direct links at no cost.

Ordering Direct Link (2.0) Connect

To order Direct Link Connect, complete the following steps:

1. Follow Direct Link Connect ordering instructions with these exceptions:

   • In the Gateway section, select the same location as the Power Virtual Server instance. Each location requires its own direct link. For example, if you order a direct link for Frankfurt 04, you cannot establish connection to the VMs in Frankfurt 05.

     For the list of Direct Link Connect PowerVS locations, see Providers and locations.

     • For Routing, select Local to access all of the data centers that are connected at the location that you specified. Select Global to access all of the IBM Cloud data centers in the world.
     • For Provider, select IBM POWER VS from the list.
     • For Speed, select the link speed to meet your workload requirements. The recommended speed is 1 Gbps.
     • For the list of Ports, select a port that has the least number of connections. If you have multiple direct links, you must choose different ports for each connection.

   • In the Billing section, select Unmetered.

   • In the BGP section:

     • For BGP peering subnet, you can select Auto-select IP to auto-select an IP address from range 169.254.0.0/16, or manually enter addresses in a specific range to avoid conflict with an existing connection.
     • For BGP ASN, enter 64999 as the BGP ASN number for the Direct Link Connect location unless a different ASN number is required as indicated on the provisioning page. For example, BGP ASN number for the WDC04 location is 64995. For 10 Gbps ports that are not GRE capable, you must use the BGP ASN number 64997.
     • Do not try to change the BGP ASN number to 64995. You must contact the IBM Power support team to handle your request to change the BGP ASN number.

     Table 1. BGP ASN number for specific Connect sites

     Direct Link Connect site	BGP ASN
     Dallas 10 Dallas 12 Dallas 13	4206000072 64999 64999
     Washington 04 Washington 06 Washington 07	64995 64999 4206000068
     Frankfurt 04 Frankfurt 05	64999 64999
     London 06	64999
     Toronto 01	64999
     Montreal 01	64999
     São Paulo 04	4206000076
     Chennai 01	4206000092

2. Read and agree to the Direct Link prerequisites, then click Create.

   After your Direct Link connection order is submitted, go to Interconnectivity > Direct Link to view the status of your order. The Direct Link page lists all existing Direct Link connections.

3. To complete your connection, submit an IBM Support case to the Power Virtual Server team. In the description field, enter the following details.

   Customer name:
   Customer account ID:
   Data center details:
   Direct Link Connect subnet:
   IBM Cloud IP address:
   Power Virtual Server network IP address:
   Direct Link Connect VLAN:
   IBM Cloud ASN:
   Power Virtual Server network ASN:
   Power Virtual Server Private Network (subnet) Name (1):
   Power Virtual Server Private Network (subnet) Name (2):
   Power Virtual Server Private Network (subnet) Name (3):
   Direct Link Connect 2.0 Virtual Connections:
   Classic Network Virtual Connection: Yes/No
   VPC Virtual Connection 1: VPC name and ID
   VPC Virtual Connection 2: VPC name and ID
   VPC Virtual Connection 3: VPC name and ID 
   

   The Power Virtual Server network autonomous system number (ASN) is the same as your Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) ASN. The IBM Cloud network team generates the IBM Cloud ASN and adds it to the IBM Cloud support case. The IBM Cloud network team also generates the IP addresses. Your private network name is your Power Virtual Server private network subnet name.

   The Power Virtual Server support case is closed when the Direct Link Connect connection is configured to communicate with your Power Virtual Server instance.

Setting up high availability over Direct Link Connect

Your Direct Link connections are location-specific. By default, IBM Cloud Direct Link is not a redundant service. You must order a separate Direct Link Connect instance for redundancy.

To set up a high availability through Direct Link Connect, complete the following steps:

1. Order two instances of Direct Link Connect. For instructions, see Ordering Direct Link Connect.

   In the BGP section, select a port from a separate port group for the redundant Direct Link Connect instance. Both Direct Link Connect instances must be on separate ports to connect to different Power Virtual Server routers, thus, ensuring redundancy.

   The following example shows the Direct Link Connect ports for the DAL12 data center. The ports that end with 1-1 and 1-2 belong to one port group, and the ports ending with 2-1 and 2-2 belong to another port group. If you select a port from the first port group, you must select a port from the second port group for the redundant Direct Link Connect instance. That is, if you select -1-1 for the first Direct Link Connect instance, you must select -2-1 or -2-2 for the second Direct Link Connect instance.

   

   Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) sessions are configured for the Direct Link Connect service in such a way that when a fault is detected on a Direct Link Connect instance, the BGP routes traffic to an alternate Direct Link Connect instance. For 10 Gbps connections, use the new ports that are not GRE capable. Ports that are GRE capable can use only up to a 5 Gbps speed.

   Refer to the following table to identify the ports and port groups that you must select for the redundant Direct Link Connect instance:

   Table 2. Port and Port groups for redundant Direct Link instances

   Data center	Network provider	Port group 1	Port group 2 for redundancy
   LON04	IBM Power VS	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-LON04-1-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-LON04-1-2	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-LON04-2-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-LON04-2-2
   LON06	IBM Power VS	SL-LON06-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-LON06-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-LON04-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [1]	SL-LON06-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-LON06-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-LON04-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [2]
   FRA05	IBM Power VS	SL-FRA05-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-FRA05-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-FRA05-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [3]	SL-FRA05-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-FRA05-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-FRA05-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [4]
   FRA04	IBM Power VS	SL-FRA04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-FRA04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-FRA04-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [5]	SL-FRA04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-FRA04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-FRA04-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [6]
   WDC04	IBM Power VS	NNI-LINK-SL-WDC04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-WDC04-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [7]	NNI-LINK-SL-WDC04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-WDC04-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [8]
   WDC06	IBM Power VS	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-WDC06-1-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-WDC06-1-2	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-WDC06-2-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-WDC06-2-2
   WDC07	IBM Power VS	SL-WDC07-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-WDC07-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2	SL-WDC07-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-WDC07-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2
   DAL10	IBM Power VS	SL-DAL10-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-DAL10-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2	SL-DAL10-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-DAL10-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2
   DAL12	IBM Power VS	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-DAL12-1-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-DAL12-1-2 xPowerVS-DAL12-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [9]	IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-DAL12-2-1 IBM POWER VS-CLOUD EXCHANGE SL-DAL12-2-2 xPowerVS-DAL12-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [10]
   DAL13	IBM Power VS	SOFTLAYER-IBMPOWERIAASLITE-1-1 SOFTLAYER-IBMPOWERIAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-DAL13-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [11]	SOFTLAYER-IBMPOWERIAASLITE-2-1 SOFTLAYER-IBMPOWERIAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-DAL13-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [12]
   SYD04	IBM Power VS	SL-SYD04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-1 SL-SYD04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-1-2 xPowerVS-SYD04-10G-NOGRE-1-1 [13]	SL-SYD04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-1 SL-SYD04-IBMPOWERLAASLITE-2-2 xPowerVS-SYD04-10G-NOGRE-1-2 [14]
   TOK04	IBM Power VS	SL-TOK01-ZENLAYER-3-1 01675-TK4-X-I-0002 TKY/TKY/LE-275454	SL-TOK01-ZENLAYER-4-1
   OSA21	IBM Power VS	SL-OSA01-ATTOKYO-1-1	SL-OSA01-ATTOKYO-2-1
   SAO04	IBM Power VS	SL-SAO04-POWERVSCX-1-1 SL-SAO04-POWERVSCX-1-2	SL-SAO04-POWERVSCX-2-1 SL-SAO04-POWERVSCX-2-2
   CHE01	IBM Power VS	IBM-CHE01-POWERCX-1-1 IBM-CHE01-POWERCX-1-2	IBM-CHE01-POWERCX-2-1 IBM-CHE01-POWERCX-2-2

2. Select the remaining options and create the Direct Link Connect instance as described in Ordering Direct Link (2.0) Connect.

Routing considerations for VPC

If traffic is sent from the Power Virtual Server to your on-premises public IP address, and if the virtual server instance has a public floating IP, you might need a special configuration in the VPC. Otherwise, the traffic goes through the virtual machine's public interface instead of a private interface.

For proper VPC configuration, the on-premises IP address must meet the following requirements:

• The IP address range for a private network must be within the following blocks, which are reserved by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA):
  • Class A — 10.0.0.0 — 10.255.255.255 (16,777,216 total hosts)
  • Class B — 172.16.0.0 — 172.31.255.255 (1,048,576 total hosts)
  • Class C — 192.168.0.0 — 192.168.255.255 (65,536 total hosts)
• VM instances within the VPC must not have a floating IP.
• Use the Delegate-VPC action to create a route to the on-premises public subnet in the VPC default routing table.

For more information, see Routing considerations for IANA-registered IP assignments.