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AWS Direct Connect Overview

AWS Direct Connect enables you to establish a dedicated network connection from your infrastructure deployed in an Equinix IBX data center to your AWS environment.

Equinix supports AWS Direct Connect Hosted Connections through the following service profiles:

  • AWS Direct Connect - 50 to 500 Mbps Hosted Connection

  • AWS Direct Connect - High Capacity - 1 to 25 Gbps Hosted Connection

  • AWS Direct Connect - Redundant - 50 to 500 Mbps Hosted Connection for AWS Direct Connect at DRT Docklands, London via Equinix LD8 in eu-west1 and eu-west2 regions and AWS Direct Connect in Global Switch, Singapore via Equinix SG4 in ap-southeast-1 region.

  • AWS Direct Connect- High Capacity - Redundant - 1 to 25 Gbps Hosted Connection for AWS Direct Connect at DRT Docklands, London via Equinix LD8 in eu-west1 and eu-west2 regions and AWS Direct Connect in Global Switch, Singapore via Equinix SG4 in ap-southeast-1 region and Calgary ca-west-1.

Bandwidth Options​

Standard AWS Direct Connect service profiles offer connection speeds of 50 to 500 Mbps.

Equinix Fabric has added support for 25 Gbps AWS Direct Connect - High Capacity hosted connections in select metros. If your A-side location and the Z-side AWS metro on-ramp combination qualifies, this bandwidth will be made available to you during the connection creation process.

25 Gbps is currently available for:

  • Local virtual connections in select metros (see list below)

    AMEREMEAAPAC
    Calgary (CL)
    Chicago (CH)
    Dallas (DA)
    Los Angeles (LA)
    Miami (MI)
    New York (NY)
    San Paulo (SP)
    Seattle (SE)
    Silicon Valley (SV)
    Toronto (TR)
    Washington D.C. (DC)
    Amsterdam (AM)
    Frankfurt (FR)
    London (LD)
    Madrid (MD)
    Paris (PA)
    Zurich (ZH)
    Hong Kong (HK)
    Melbourne (ME)
    Mumbai (MB)
    Singapore (SG)
    Sydney (SY)
    Tokyo (TY)

  • Remote virtual connections between metro pairs that support 25 Gbps. For details, see Virtual Connection Availability.

note

Resizing (upgrading or downgrading) the bandwidth of a Direct Connect connection is not currently available. AWS does not support automated bandwidth resizing of partner connections. To change the bandwidth of your AWS Direct Connection you need to delete the old connection and create a new connection at the desired bandwidth.

Connection Redundancy Options​

Equinix and Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers customers the ability to achieve highly resilient network connections between Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) and their on-premises infrastructure.

To configure redundancy, a second Direct Connect link must be created by repeating the same steps described above. Redundancy should be created over a second port into the Equinix Fabric.

To achieve high availability with AWS Direct Connect, each Virtual Private Gateway (VGW) should be configured with connections to multiple Direct Connect locations.

For more information on configuration, see AWS Direct Connect Resiliency Recommendations.

Creating the Connection​

Establish a direct, layer 2 connection between your IBX colocated assets and your Amazon Web Services (AWS) resources using Equinix Fabric and AWS Direct Connect.

Equinix Fabric enables you to connect from your a-side:

  • Fabric Port
  • Network Edge Device
  • Fabric Cloud Router
  • Service Token

To your z-side AWS VPC through AWS Direct Connect.

Options for creating the connection include:

Configuring the Connection​

Virtual Interface (VIF) is the mechanism for configuring VLAN's and routing (BGP) between the customer edge device and the AWS device.

There are two kinds of VIFs: Public and Private.

For more information, see AWS DX Virtual Interfaces.

After you create and accept the connection, the last step is to configure the routing between Equinix and AWS.