Development and test - Amazon Direct Connect
Step 1: Sign up for AmazonStep 2: Configure the resiliency modelStep 3: Create a virtual interfaceStep 4: Verify your virtual interface resiliency configurationStep 5: Verify your virtual interface
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Development and test

You can achieve development and test resiliency for non-critical workloads by using separate connections that terminate on separate devices in one location (as shown in the following figure). This model provides resiliency against device failure, but does not provide resiliency against location failure.

Development and Test Model

The following procedures demonstrate how to use the Amazon Direct Connect Resiliency Toolkit to configure a development and test resiliency model.

Step 1: Sign up for Amazon

To use Amazon Direct Connect, you need an Amazon account if you don't already have one.

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services

  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Step 2: Configure the resiliency model

To configure the resiliency model

  1. Open the Amazon Direct Connect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Connections, and then choose Create a connection.

  3. Under Connection ordering type, choose Connection wizard.

  4. Under Resiliency level, choose Development and test, and then choose Next.

  5. On the Configure connections pane, under Connection settings, do the following:

    1. For bandwidth, choose the connection bandwidth.

      This bandwidth applies to all of the created connections.

    2. For First location service provider, select the appropriate Amazon Direct Connect location.

    3. If applicable, for First Sub location, choose the floor closest to you or your network provider. This option is only available if the location has meet-me rooms (MMRs) on multiple floors of the building.

    4. If you selected Other for First location service provider, for Name of other provider, enter the name of the partner that you use.

    5. (Optional) Add or remove a tag.

      [Add a tag] Choose Add tag and do the following:

      • For Key, enter the key name.

      • For Value, enter the key value.

      [Remove a tag] Next to the tag, choose Remove tag.

  6. Choose Next.

  7. Review your connections, and then choose Continue.

    If your LOAs are ready, you can choose Download LOA, and then click Continue.

    It can take up to 72 hours for Amazon to review your request and provision a port for your connection. During this time, you might receive an email with a request for more information about your use case or the specified location. The email is sent to the email address that you used when you signed up for Amazon. You must respond within 7 days or the connection is deleted.

Step 3: Create a virtual interface

To begin using your Amazon Direct Connect connection, you must create a virtual interface. You can create a private virtual interface to connect to your VPC. Or, you can create a public virtual interface to connect to public Amazon services that aren't in a VPC. When you create a private virtual interface to a VPC, you need a private virtual interface for each VPC that you're connecting to. For example, you need three private virtual interfaces to connect to three VPCs.

Before you begin, ensure that you have the following information:

Resource Required information
Connection The Amazon Direct Connect connection or link aggregation group (LAG) for which you are creating the virtual interface.
Virtual interface name A name for the virtual interface.
Virtual interface owner If you're creating the virtual interface for another account, you need the Amazon account ID of the other account.
(Private virtual interface only) Connection For connecting to a VPC in the same Amazon Region, you need the virtual private gateway for your VPC. The ASN for the Amazon side of the BGP session is inherited from the virtual private gateway. When you create a virtual private gateway, you can specify your own private ASN. Otherwise, Amazon provides a default ASN. For more information, see Create a Virtual Private Gateway in the Amazon VPC User Guide. For connecting to a VPC through a Direct Connect gateway, you need the Direct Connect gateway. For more information, see Direct Connect Gateways.
VLAN A unique virtual local area network (VLAN) tag that's not already in use on your connection. The value must be between 1 and 4094 and must comply with the Ethernet 802.1Q standard. This tag is required for any traffic traversing the Amazon Direct Connect connection.

If you have a hosted connection, your Amazon Direct Connect Partner provides this value. You can’t modify the value after you have created the virtual interface.
Peer IP addresses A virtual interface can support a BGP peering session for IPv4, IPv6, or one of each (dual-stack). Do not use Elastic IPs (EIPs) or Bring your own IP addresses (BYOIP) from the Amazon Pool to create a public virtual interface. You cannot create multiple BGP sessions for the same IP addressing family on the same virtual interface. The IP address ranges are assigned to each end of the virtual interface for the BGP peering session.

  • IPv4:

    • (Public virtual interface only) You must specify unique public IPv4 addresses that you own. The value can be one of the following:

      • A customer-owned IPv4 CIDR

        These can be any public IPs (customer-owned or provided by Amazon), but the same subnet mask must be used for both your peer IP and the Amazon router peer IP. For example, if you allocate a /31 range, such as 203.0.113.0/31, you could use 203.0.113.0 for your peer IP and 203.0.113.1 for the Amazon peer IP. Or, if you allocate a /24 range, such as 198.51.100.0/24, you could use 198.51.100.10 for your peer IP and 198.51.100.20 for the Amazon peer IP.

      • An IP range owned by your Amazon Direct Connect Partner or ISP, along with an LOA-CFA authorization

      • An Amazon-provided /31 CIDR. Contact Amazon Support to request a public IPv4 CIDR (and provide a use case in your request)

        Note

        We cannot guarantee that we will be able to fulfill all requests for Amazon-provided public IPv4 addresses.

    • (Private virtual interface only) Amazon can generate private IPv4 addresses for you. If you specify your own, ensure that you specify private CIDRs for your router interface and the Amazon Direct Connect interface only. For example, do not specify other IP addresses from your local network. Similar to a public virtual interface, the same subnet mask must be used for both your peer IP and the Amazon router peer IP. For example, if you allocate a /30 range, such as 192.168.0.0/30, you could use 192.168.0.1 for your peer IP and 192.168.0.2 for the Amazon peer IP.

  • IPv6: Amazon automatically allocates you a /125 IPv6 CIDR. You cannot specify your own peer IPv6 addresses.
Address family Whether the BGP peering session will be over IPv4 or IPv6.
BGP information

  • A public or private Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Autonomous System Number (ASN) for your side of the BGP session. If you are using a public ASN, you must own it. If you are using a private ASN, you can set a custom ASN value. For a 16-bit ASN, the value must be in the 64512 to 65534 range. For a 32-bit ASN, the value must be in the 1 to 2147483647 range. Autonomous System (AS) prepending does not work if you use a private ASN for a public virtual interface.

  • Amazon enables MD5 by default. You cannot modify this option.

  • An MD5 BGP authentication key. You can provide your own, or you can let Amazon generate one for you.
(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, up to a maximum of 1,000 prefixes.

  • IPv4: The IPv4 CIDR can overlap with another public IPv4 CIDR announced using Amazon Direct Connect when either of the following is true:

    • The CIDRs are from different Amazon Regions. Make sure that you apply BGP community tags on the public prefixes.

    • You use AS_PATH when you have a public ASN in an active/passive configuration.

    For more information, see Routing policies and BGP communities.

  • IPv6: Specify a prefix length of /64 or shorter.

  • You may add additional prefixes to an existing public VIF and advertise those by contacting Amazon support. In your support case, provide a list of additional CIDR prefixes you want to add to the public VIF and advertise.

  • You can specify any prefix length over a Direct Connect public virtual interface. IPv4 should support anything from /1 - /32, and IPv6 should support anything from /1 - /64.
(Private virtual interface only) Jumbo frames The maximum transmission unit (MTU) of packets over Amazon Direct Connect. The default is 1500. Setting the MTU of a virtual interface to 9001 (jumbo frames) can cause an update to the underlying physical connection if it wasn't updated to support jumbo frames. Updating the connection disrupts network connectivity for all virtual interfaces associated with the connection for up to 30 seconds. Jumbo frames apply only to propagated routes from Amazon Direct Connect. If you add static routes to a route table that point to your virtual private gateway, then traffic routed through the static routes is sent using 1500 MTU. To check whether a connection or virtual interface supports jumbo frames, select it in the Amazon Direct Connect console and find Jumbo frame capable on the virtual interface General configuration page.
(Transit virtual interface only) Jumbo frames The maximum transmission unit (MTU) of packets over Amazon Direct Connect. The default is 1500. Setting the MTU of a virtual interface to 8500 (jumbo frames) can cause an update to the underlying physical connection if it wasn't updated to support jumbo frames. Updating the connection disrupts network connectivity for all virtual interfaces associated with the connection for up to 30 seconds. Jumbo frames are supported up to 8500 MTU for Direct Connect. Static routes and propagated routes configured in the Transit Gateway Route Table will support Jumbo Frames, including from EC2 instances with VPC static route table entries to the Transit Gateway Attachment. To check whether a connection or virtual interface supports jumbo frames, select it in the Amazon Direct Connect console and find Jumbo frame capable on the virtual interface General configuration page.

If your public prefixes or ASNs belong to an ISP or network carrier, we request additional information from you. This can be a document using an official company letterhead, or an email from the company's domain name verifying that the network prefix/ASN can be used by you.

When you create a public virtual interface, it can take up to 72 hours for Amazon to review and approve your request.

To provision a public virtual interface to non-VPC services

  1. Open the Amazon Direct Connect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Virtual Interfaces.

  3. Choose Create virtual interface.

  4. Under Virtual interface type, for Type, choose Public.

  5. Under Public virtual interface settings, do the following:

    1. For Virtual interface name, enter a name for the virtual interface.

    2. For Connection, choose the Direct Connect connection that you want to use for this interface.

    3. For VLAN, enter the ID number for your virtual local area network (VLAN).

    4. For BGP ASN, enter the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Autonomous System Number (ASN) of your gateway.

      The valid values are 1-2147483647.

  6. Under Additional settings, do the following:

    1. To configure an IPv4 BGP or an IPv6 peer, do the following:

      [IPv4] To configure an IPv4 BGP peer, choose IPv4 and do one of the following:

      • To specify these IP addresses yourself, for Your router peer ip, enter the destination IPv4 CIDR address to which Amazon should send traffic.

      • For Amazon router peer IP, enter the IPv4 CIDR address to use to send traffic to Amazon.

      [IPv6] To configure an IPv6 BGP peer, choose IPv6. The peer IPv6 addresses are automatically assigned from Amazon's pool of IPv6 addresses. You cannot specify custom IPv6 addresses.

    2. To provide your own BGP key, enter your BGP MD5 key.

      If you do not enter a value, we generate a BGP key.

    3. To advertise prefixes to Amazon, for Prefixes you want to advertise, enter the IPv4 CIDR destination addresses (separated by commas) to which traffic should be routed over the virtual interface.

    4. (Optional) Add or remove a tag.

      [Add a tag] Choose Add tag and do the following:

      • For Key, enter the key name.

      • For Value, enter the key value.

      [Remove a tag] Next to the tag, choose Remove tag.

  7. Choose Create virtual interface.

To provision a private virtual interface to a VPC

  1. Open the Amazon Direct Connect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Virtual Interfaces.

  3. Choose Create virtual interface.

  4. Under Virtual interface type, for Type, choose Private.

  5. Under Private virtual interface settings, do the following:

    1. For Virtual interface name, enter a name for the virtual interface.

    2. For Connection, choose the Direct Connect connection that you want to use for this interface.

    3. For Gateway type, choose Virtual private gateway, or Direct Connect gateway.

    4. For Virtual interface owner, choose Another Amazon account, and then enter the Amazon account.

    5. For Virtual private gateway, choose the virtual private gateway to use for this interface.

    6. For VLAN, enter the ID number for your virtual local area network (VLAN).

    7. For BGP ASN, enter the Border Gateway Protocol Autonomous System Number of your on-premises peer router for the new virtual interface.

      The valid values are 1 to 2147483647.

  6. Under Additional Settings, do the following:

    1. To configure an IPv4 BGP or an IPv6 peer, do the following:

      [IPv4] To configure an IPv4 BGP peer, choose IPv4 and do one of the following:

      • To specify these IP addresses yourself, for Your router peer ip, enter the destination IPv4 CIDR address to which Amazon should send traffic.

      • For Amazon router peer ip, enter the IPv4 CIDR address to use to send traffic to Amazon.

        Important

        If you let Amazon auto-assign IPv4 addresses, a /29 CIDR will be allocated from 169.254.0.0/16 IPv4 Link-Local according to RFC 3927 for point-to-point connectivity. Amazon does not recommend this option if you intend to use the customer router peer IP address as the source and/or destination for VPC traffic. Instead you should use RFC 1918 or other addressing, and specify the address yourself.

      [IPv6] To configure an IPv6 BGP peer, choose IPv6. The peer IPv6 addresses are automatically assigned from Amazon's pool of IPv6 addresses. You cannot specify custom IPv6 addresses.

    2. To change the maximum transmission unit (MTU) from 1500 (default) to 9001 (jumbo frames), select Jumbo MTU (MTU size 9001).

    3. (Optional) Under Enable SiteLink, choose Enabled to enable direct connectivity between Direct Connect points of presence.

    4. (Optional) Add or remove a tag.

      [Add a tag] Choose Add tag and do the following:

      • For Key, enter the key name.

      • For Value, enter the key value.

      [Remove a tag] Next to the tag, choose Remove tag.

  7. Choose Create virtual interface.

Step 4: Verify your virtual interface resiliency configuration

After you have established virtual interfaces to the Amazon Cloud or to Amazon VPC, perform a virtual interface failover test to verify that your configuration meets your resiliency requirements. For more information, see Amazon Direct Connect Failover Test.

Step 5: Verify your virtual interface

After you have established virtual interfaces to the Amazon Cloud or to Amazon VPC, you can verify your Amazon Direct Connect connection using the following procedures.

To verify your virtual interface connection to the Amazon Cloud

  • Run traceroute and verify that the Amazon Direct Connect identifier is in the network trace.

To verify your virtual interface connection to Amazon VPC

  1. Using a pingable AMI, such as an Amazon Linux AMI, launch an EC2 instance into the VPC that is attached to your virtual private gateway. The Amazon Linux AMIs are available in the Quick Start tab when you use the instance launch wizard in the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, see Launch an Instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances. Ensure that the security group that's associated with the instance includes a rule permitting inbound ICMP traffic (for the ping request).

  2. After the instance is running, get its private IPv4 address (for example, 10.0.0.4). The Amazon EC2 console displays the address as part of the instance details.

  3. Ping the private IPv4 address and get a response.