IBM Cloud Direct Link overview
IBM Cloud® Direct Link offerings provide connectivity from an external source into a customer IBM Cloud private network. Direct Link can be viewed as an alternative to a site-to-site VPN solution, which is designed for customers that need more consistent, higher-throughput connectivity between a remote network and their IBM Cloud environments.
The IBM Cloud Direct Link service is a routed OSI Layer-3 service. It offers a direct connection to the IBM Cloud private network backbone. Currently, two types of Direct Link connections are available:
- Direct Link Dedicated - Offers a single-tenant, fiber-based cross-connect into the IBM Cloud network.
- Direct Link Connect - Offers private access through various service providers into the IBM Cloud network and to any other clouds.
For more information, see About IBM Cloud Direct Link (2.0).
Considerations with VMware Cloud Foundation solution in VPC
When you use the VMware® virtual machines (VMs) on the VPC subnet architecture, your VMs are attached to VPC subnets and the routing behaves in the same way as with VPC Virtual Servers. The VPC subnets are provisioned from the zone prefix, and when the VPC is attached to a Direct Link, the routing works between on-premises without any required changes. If you are using IANA-registered IP addresses in your VPC, see Routing considerations for IANA-registered IP assignments.
When you use NSX™ on your VMware® solution on VPC, the VMs are attached on the NSX overlay segments. They use an IP address range or prefix, which is reachable through VPC route. The IP address range or prefix points to the NSX Tier-0 private uplink VIP as described in the VMware NSX logical routing on VPC topic. When you attach the VPC to a Direct Link, you must create the VPC routes with advertise flag so that they are advertised.
