Creating an AWS Hosted Connection for an MVE with Arista VeloCloud SD-WAN

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

To create a Hosted Connection from an MVE to AWS

In the Megaport Portal, go to the Services page and select the MVE for the connection.
Click +Connection then click Cloud.
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 Select Destination Port search field to narrow the selection.
Each destination port has either a blue or red icon to indicate its diversity zone. To achieve diversity, you need to create two connections with each one in a different zone.
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 your Megaport service to be used for billing purposes, such as a cost center number, unique customer ID, or purchase order number. 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.
- Rate Limit – The speed of your connection. This value cannot be changed after deployment. The drop-down list displays predefined rate limits available for your MVE, with speeds varying by location and service capabilities.
- 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 in the Megaport Portal.
- 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, 36 Months, 48 Months, or 60 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).
  
  Enable the Minimum Term Renewal option for services with a 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60-month term to automatically renew the contract at the same discounted price and term length at the end of the contract. If you don’t renew the contract, at the end of the term, the contract will automatically roll over to month-to-month contract for the following billing period, at the same price, without term discounts.
  
  For more information, see VXC Pricing and Contract Terms and VXC, Megaport Internet, and IX Billing.
- Resource Tags – You can use resource tags to add your own reference metadata to a Megaport service.
  To add a tag:
  1. Click Add Tags.
  2. Click Add New Tag.
  3. Enter details into the fields:
    - Key – string maximum length 128. Valid values are a-z 0-9 _ : . / \ -
    - Value – string maximum length 256. Valid values are a-z A-Z 0-9 _ : . @ / + \ - (space)
  4. Click Save.
  If you already have resource tags for that service, you can manage them by clicking Manage Tags.
  
  Warning
  
  Never include sensitive information in a resource tag. Sensitive information includes commands that return existing tag definitions and information that will identify a person or company.
Click Next.
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.
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.

VXC details

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

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

Note

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

In the AWS console, click Create Virtual Interface.
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.
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 – Specify the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) autonomous system number (ASN) for the MVE side of the BGP session.
The following BGP details can be specified 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.
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 Orchestrator

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 Orchestrator. This involves configuring BGP settings, ASNs, VLANs, and MD5 values.

To add the AWS connection in Orchestrator

Collect the connection details from the AWS console.
Display the details of the Virtual Interface you created in AWS for this Hosted Connection. Note the values for the BGP ASN, BGP Auth Key, Your Peer IP, and Amazon Peer IP.
Collect the connection details from the Megaport Portal.
Click the gear icon for the AWS connection from your MVE and click the Details view. Note the value for the A-End VLAN.

For more information about adding an AWS connection in Orchestrator, see Amazon Web Services (AWS) Configuration Procedure (Arista).

To configure BGP for the AWS connection in Orchestrator

For more information about how to configure BGP for the AWS connection in Orchestrator, see Configuring BGP (Arista).

You can also check connectivity and BGP status from the CLI of the edge device. For more information, see Reviewing your VeloCloud MVE connection settings.