Understanding the architecture
AWS has simplified the connectivity model using AWS Direct Connect to reach Arista VeloCloud. Using Megaport as your Network-as-a-Service provider, you can seamlessly deploy Virtual Interfaces (VIF) to AWS Direct Connect for Arista VeloCloud consumption, from their on-premises Data Center infrastructure. The images below highlight the components associated with a customer’s on-premises environment connecting to a Port to reach VMware Cloud on AWS along with the available AWS Cloud services. You will not have root or SSH access to vSphere. Also, you cannot install 3rd-party VIBs or plugins. Check with your Arista VeloCloud representative if these are required for your solution. When networking functions are provided by the NSX-T, management traffic, cold migration and hot migration (using vMotion) traffic, and compute gateway traffic can all be transported across Direct Connect. This is an upgrade from the previous version of NSX that did not support all traffic types. Note that NSX-T is not a requirement in the on-premises infrastructure for this solution to work. An NSX standalone client can be downloaded into the on-premises environment for operational use.When deploying vMotion between a VMkernel source and destination, a minimum bandwidth of 250 Mbps is required with a maximum round trip latency of 150 milliseconds. For more information, see vSphere vMotion Networking Requirements.
Setting up
Refer to the ARISTA VeloCloud documentation for initial set up. For more information, see VeloCloud SD-WAN 6.4 Operator Guide. Once logged in, you need to create a new SDDC with information such as the AWS account, management network IPs (once you submit the IP blocks, they cannot be changed/updated), number of hosts (minimum of four required for original setup to a maximum of 32 per cluster and you can have 10 clusters per SDDC), and the AWS region for the solution along with the availability zones. The VeloCloud account will be linked to the AWS account. Preconfigured Cloudformation templates for configuration can help in the initial setup of the solution. The initial environment takes up to two hours to spin up and provision while subsequent additions, deletions, and changes to hosts can happen in a matter of minutes. For more information about the initial setup process, see the ARISTA VeloCloud on AWS Getting Started and a walk-through video.Using Megaport with this solution
You can implement a Direct Connect Layer 2 connection to link your on-premises or co-location based infrastructure and your Arista VeloCloud on an AWS instance using Megaport. If you are already a Megaport customer with a physical Port established, you simply add a new VXC through your Megaport account to the ARISTA VeloCloud on AWS instance that you created in the initial setup process. You use the same AWS account ID that you used in the setup process. You can establish a new Port if you want to physically separate this solution from your existing traffic traversing your Ports or simply require this Port in a different location. If you are not a current Megaport customer, you can establish a 10 Gbps, 100 Gbps, or higher connection into one of our Points of Presence (PoPs) around the globe. If you are not currently in one of these Point of Presence (PoP) locations, you can procure the last mile circuit to one of the PoPs to achieve connectivity to Megaport. Contact Megaport if you require help with or information on procuring a last mile circuit to one of our PoP locations. With a Port, you can set up a VXC to a private VIF in the Arista VeloCloud SDDC instance in AWS. The VXC utilizes private IP space and will terminate directly to your AWS VPC and only the VPC CIDR blocks are advertised back to your on-premises infrastructure. Additionally, the private VIF will terminate on a virtual gateway (VGW) in the VPC which is transparent to users. Customers can create a private Hosted VIF from their account and enter the Arista VeloCloud on AWS account number for the VIF. This account number can be obtained from the Arista VeloCloud on AWS console, under the Direct Connect > VMC AWS Account. For more information, see Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN and VMware Cloud on AWS Deployment Guide. You can advertise your on-premises networks to the SDDC as well. This allows a simplified full connectivity option while taking advantage of the 10 Gbps, 100 Gbps, or higher bandwidth connections from Direct Connect. You can see the routes advertised from the Arista VeloCloud SDDC to your on-premises from the Advertised BGP Routes section on the console, and the routes received from their on-premises on the Learned BGP Routes section. The maximum number of logical network routes that can be advertised from the Arista VeloCloud SDDC to on-premises is 16 (Arista VeloCloud can increase this limit). You can achieve redundancy for the connectivity portion of for this solution by establishing additional VXCs to to the AWS environment. You can achieve additional physical redundancy by implementing the VXCs on separate Ports.You can also establish an internet VPN for redundancy purposes.