Creating an AWS Hosted Connection for an MVE with Aviatrix Secure Edge

A Hosted Connection can support one private, public, or transit virtual interface. These are dedicated connections and are recommended for production environments.

To create a Hosted Connection from an MVE to AWS

1. In the Megaport Portal, go to the Services page and select the MVE for the connection.

2. Click +Connection then click Cloud.

3. Select AWS as the service provider, select Hosted Connection as the AWS Connection Type, select the destination port, then click Next.
   You can use the Country filter to narrow the selection.
   Each destination port has either a blue or an red icon to indicate its diversity zone. To achieve diversity, you need to create two connections with each one in a different zone.
   

4. Specify the connection details:

   • Connection Name – The name of your VXC to be shown in the Megaport Portal.

   • Service Level Reference (optional) – Specify a unique identifying number for the VXC to be used for billing purposes, such as a cost center number or a unique customer ID. The service level reference number appears for each service under the Product section of the invoice. You can also edit this field for an existing service.

     Note

     Partner-managed accounts can apply a Partner Deal to a service. For more information, see Associating a Deal With a Service.

   • Rate Limit – The speed of your connection. The speed cannot be changed once deployed. The drop-down list shows predefined rate limits available for your MVE, up to 25 Gbps.

   • VXC State – Select Enabled or Shut Down to define the initial state of the connection. For more information, see Shutting Down a VXC for Failover Testing.

     Note

     If you select Shut Down, traffic will not flow through this service and it will behave as if it was down on the Megaport network. Billing for this service will remain active and you will still be charged for this connection.

   • A-End vNIC – Select an A-End vNIC from the drop-down list. For more information about vNICs, see Creating an MVE with Aviatrix.

   • Preferred A-End VLAN (optional) – Specify an unused VLAN ID for this connection.
     This must be a unique VLAN ID on this MVE and can range from 2 to 4093. If you specify a VLAN ID that is already in use, the system displays the next available VLAN number. The VLAN ID must be unique to proceed with the order. If you don’t specify a value, Megaport will assign one.

   • Minimum Term – Select No Minimum Term, 12 Months, 24 Months, or 36 Months. Longer terms result in a lower monthly rate. 12 Months is selected by default.
     Take note of the information on the screen to avoid early termination fees (ETF). For more information, see VXC Pricing and Contract Terms and VXC, Megaport Internet, and IX Billing.

   

5. Click Next.

6. Specify the connection details for the AWS service.

   • AWS Connection Name – This is a text field and will be the name of your virtual interface that appears in the AWS console. The AWS Connection Name is automatically populated with the name specified in a previous step.

   • AWS Account ID – This is the ID of the account you want to connect. You can find this value in the management section of your AWS console.
     

7. Click Next to proceed to the connection detail summary, click Add VXC, and order the connection.

Once the VXC connection is deployed successfully, it appears on the Megaport Portal Services page and is associated with the MVE. Click the VXC title to display the details of this connection. Note that the service status (Layer 2) is up but BGP (Layer 3) will be down because the configuration does not exist yet.

Once deployed in the Megaport Portal, you need to accept the connection in the AWS console and create a Virtual Interface for the connection:

To accept a Hosted Connection

1. In AWS, go to Services > AWS Direct Connect > Connections then click the connection name.
   

2. Click Accept at the top right of the window.
   

   The state will be pending for a few minutes while AWS deploys the connection. After it is deployed, the state changes from ordering to available.

The connection is now available, however you need to create a VIF to connect to AWS services.

Tip

For more information about accepting AWS connections, see the AWS documentation.

Creating a virtual interface

Once you have created and accepted a Hosted Connection, create a VIF and attach the Hosted Connection to a gateway.

Tip

AWS provides detailed instructions for creating Public, Private, and Transit interfaces.

To create and attach a VIF

1. In the AWS console, click Create Virtual Interface.
   

2. Select the interface type.

   The type will vary depending on the type of service you need to access.

   • Private – Access resources running into a VPC using their private IP addresses. You can choose to terminate a private virtual interface on a private virtual gateway (to access a single VPC) or to a Direct Connect gateway (and map up to 10 VPCs to the VIF).
   • Public – Access all AWS public endpoints, as well as all AWS resources that are reachable by a public IP address.
   • Transit – Transport traffic from a Direct Connect gateway to one or more transit gateways.
     

3. Specify the configuration details:

   • Virtual interface name – Enter a name for the virtual interface.
   • Connection – The physical connection where you want this virtual interface to be provisioned. The name you provided for the Hosted Connection in the Megaport Portal appears here.
   • Virtual interface owner – The account that will own the virtual interface. Select My AWS account.
   • Direct Connect gateway – Select the Direct Connect gateway to attach this virtual interface to. A transit VIF is not directly attached to a Transit gateway, but to a Direct Connect gateway.
   • VLAN – The VLAN assigned to the virtual interface. Leave this value as is. The VLAN address is populated and appears to be editable; however, you will get an error if you try to change it.
   • BGP ASN – Enter the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) autonomous system number (ASN) for the MVE side of the BGP session.

   The following BGP details can be filled out or left blank. When left blank, they are auto-populated by AWS.
   

   You can also choose whether you want the virtual interface to support Jumbo frames. Enable Jumbo MTU to support an Ethernet packet of 8500 bytes.

4. Click Create virtual interface.

   To view the VIF details and state, navigate to Services > AWS Direct Connect > Connections > Name of the Megaport-Created-Hosted Connection.
   

   BGP hasn’t been configured, so the interface state appears as down.

Once you accept the connection and create the VIF in AWS, the VXC state changes to Configured in the Megaport Portal.

Adding AWS connection details to Aviatrix

After creating a connection from your MVE to AWS and setting it up in the AWS console, you must configure it in Aviatrix CoPilot. This includes configuring interface IPs, BGP settings, ASNs, and MD5 authentication values.

Configuring the WAN Interface for BGP

1. AWS Connection Details

   Collect the following connection details from AWS:

   • BGP ASN
   • BGP Auth Key
   • Your Peer IP
   • Amazon Peer IP

2. Megaport Connection Details

   Collect the A-End vNIC details associated with the AWS connection from the Megaport Portal. To display the details, click the gear icon for the AWS connection from your MVE then click the Details view.

   Note the A-End vNIC value associated with the AWS connection. Aviatrix orders vNICs in the same order they are created in the Megaport Portal. For example:

   • 0: eth0
   • 1: eth1
   • 2: eth2

   Collect the vNIC number associated with the AWS connection, as this number will be used to associate the Aviatrix interface with the same number. For example, vNIC 0 in the Megaport Portal corresponds to eth0 in Aviatrix.

   Note

   Ensure all vNICs remain untagged as the Aviatrix MVE does not support VLAN tagging.

3. Aviatrix CoPilot Configuration

   Log in to Aviatrix and configure the Edge Gateway Interface with the AWS details as follows:

   • Turn on BGP.
   • For the Interface CIDR, enter the Your Peer IP from the AWS console.
   • For the Default Gateway IP, enter your Amazon Peer IP from the AWS console.
   • For the Remote ASN, enter the Amazon side BGP ASN.
   • For password, enter the MD5 BGP Auth Key provided by Amazon.
   • For the Local ASN, enter your MVE’s BGP ASN.
   • For the interface VLAN, specify the A-End vNIC value collected from the Megaport Portal.

   For more information, see the Aviatrix Documentation.

Validation

• Use CoPilot’s diagnostic tools to review connection details and perform a ping test to check IP connectivity to AWS.
• Verify that BGP is established using BGP diagnostics and relevant BGP CLI commands.