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Megaport Documentation
MVE Hosted VIFs

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

Hosted VIFs can connect to public or private AWS cloud services: a Hosted VIF cannot connect to a transit virtual interface. These connections share bandwidth.

To create a Hosted VIF 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 VIF as the AWS Connection Type, select the destination port, then click Next.
    You can use the Country filter to narrow the selection.
    Add Hosted VIF connection

  4. Specify the connection details:

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

      Tip

      Match this to the AWS Connection Name on the next screen for easy mapping.

    • 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 in Mbps. Accepted values range from 1 Mbps to 5 Gbps in 1 Mbps increments. Note the sum of all hosted virtual VXCs to a service can exceed the MVE capacity, but the total aggregate will never burst beyond the MVE capacity.

    • 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.

    Connection details

  5. Click Next.

  6. Specify the details for the AWS service. AWS connection details

    Here are details for each field:

    • Select Public or Private.

      • Private – Access private AWS services such as a VPC, EC2 instances, load balancers, RDS DB instances, on private IP address space.

      • Public – Access public AWS services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), DynamoDB, CloudFront, and Glacier. You’ll also receive Amazon’s global IP prefixes (approximately 2,000 prefixes).

        Note

        Public VIFs require manual intervention from Amazon and could take up to 72 hours. For more information, see Configuring Public AWS Connections with IP Addresses Provided by AWS.

    • 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.

    • Customer ASN (optional) – Specify the ASN used for BGP peering sessions on any VXCs connected to the MVE. This value is defined when you configure the MVE and, once defined, it cannot be changed.

    • BGP Auth Key (optional) – Specify the BGP MD5Sometimes known as an MD5 hash or BGP key. The message-digest (MD5) algorithm is a widely used cryptographic function producing a string of 32 hexadecimal digits. This is used as a password or key between routers exchanging BGP information.
       key. If you leave this blank, Megaport negotiates a key automatically for you with AWS which will be displayed in the Megaport Portal. The key is not displayed in the AWS console.

      Note

      The BGP Auth Key is generated during the ordering process when this field is left blank. It will not be displayed on the Summary page when ordering. To see the key, view the Connection Settings after the service has been deployed and is live.

    • Customer IP Address – The IP address space (in CIDR format) used on your network for peering. This field is optional for private connections and if left blank, Megaport assigns an address.

    • Amazon IP Address – The IP address space in CIDR format assigned in the AWS VPC network for peering. This field is optional for private connections and if left blank, Megaport automatically assigns an address.

    • Prefixes (optional) – (visible for Public connections only) Specify IP Prefixes to announce to AWS. Specify the prefixes you will advertise when deploying a Public Direct Connect (RIR-assigned IPv4 addresses only).

      Once you configure Prefixes for a Public connection, you cannot change them and the field is grayed out. To change this value, create a support ticket with AWS so they can make this change in a non-impacting way. Or, you can cancel the Hosted VIF and reorder. In both cases, you need to wait for AWS to manually approve the request.

  7. Click Next to proceed to the connection detail summary, add the VXC to the cart, and order the connection.

The AWS VXC appears as a connection for the MVE in the Megaport Portal.

VXC details

Next, accept the connection in AWS.

Accepting the Virtual Interface for Private Connections

A few minutes after ordering a private Hosted VIF VXC, the corresponding inbound VIF request is visible on the AWS Direct Connect > Virtual Interfaces page in the AWS console. (This is specific to the region associated with the target AWS port.) If your VIF doesn’t appear after a few minutes, confirm you are viewing the correct region.

To review and accept the private virtual interface

  1. From the AWS Direct Connect > Virtual Interfaces page, click the ID of the interface to display the configuration and peering details.
    Accepting AWS Virtual Interfaces

    The name and account ID of the VIF should match the values supplied in the Portal and the BGP ASN should match the Customer ASN configured with the VXC. The Amazon ASN is the default region’s AWS ASN and not the value specified during the configuration - this is updated when the virtual interface is accepted and assigned.

  2. Click Accept.

  3. Select the gateway type and then the specific gateway for this new virtual interface.
    Specify a gateway

  4. Click Accept virtual interface.

The state of the connection changes from confirming to pending, and then changes to available once BGP is established. Note that sometimes there is a delay in the available BGP status appearing on the AWS end, though you can confirm the current state of the Layer 3 link through the Portal view.

Accepting the Virtual Interface for Public Connections

Several minutes after ordering a public Hosted VIF VXC, the corresponding inbound VIF request appears on the AWS Direct Connect > Virtual Interfaces page in the AWS console. (This is specific to the region associated with the target AWS port.)

To review and accept the public virtual interface

  1. From the AWS Direct Connect > Virtual Interfaces page, click the ID of the interface to display the configuration and peering details.
  2. Review the configuration details then click Accept, and when prompted, click Confirm.

The state of the connection changes from confirming to verifying. At this point, the connection needs to be verified by Amazon - a process that can take up to 72 hours. When verified, the state changes to available.

Adding AWS connection details to Aviatrix

After you create the connection from your MVE to AWS and set up the connection in the AWS console, you need to configure it in Aviatrix. This involves configuring an interface and BGP, ASNs, VLANs, and MD5 values.

To configure an AWS connection between an Aviatrix MVE and AWS

  1. Megaport Connection Details

    Collect the connection details 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 values for the A-End VLAN, Customer Address (and CIDR), Amazon Address, and Customer ASN.

    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.

  2. Aviatrix CoPilot Configuration

    Log in to Aviatrix and configure Aviatrix CoPilot with the details you have copied.

    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.