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Creating an AWS Hosted Connection for an MVE with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

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 ONE Portal, choose Networking > Services.
  2. Click the gear icon Gear icon next to the MVE you want to use.
  3. Select Add Connection.
    Add Connection
  4. Specify the General connection details:

    • Connection Type – Select Cloud VXC.
    • Cloud Provider – Select Amazon Web Services.
    • AWS Connection Type – Select Hosted Connection.

    Tip

    Click What is the difference? for an overview of the AWS connection types. For more details, see Connecting to AWS Direct Connect.

    New Connection

  5. Select the AWS destination port.
    You can search for your preferred AWS port using the Country drop-down list, or enter a search term to filter results as you type. Click Clear Filters to reset the filters. 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.

  6. Specify the AWS Configuration details:

    • 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.
      AWS connection details
  7. Specify the VXC Configuration details:

    • VXC Name – The name of your VXC to be shown in the Megaport ONE Portal.
    • Rate Limit – The speed of your connection in Mbps. The speed cannot be changed once deployed. The drop-down list shows predefined rate limits available for your MVE, up to 10 Gbps.
    • 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 ONE will assign one.
      AWS connection details
  8. Specify the Billing Details:

    • 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.

    • Monthly Price – The monthly rate is based on location and size.

    • Promo Code – If you have a promotional code, enter it and click Add Code.

  9. Click Create Connection.

Once the VXC connection is deployed successfully, it appears on the Megaport ONE Networking > Services page and is associated with the MVE. Click the VXC name 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 ONE 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 and click the connection name.
    AWS Connections

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

    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

After 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.
    AWS 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. When you select Transit for the VIF, slower connections are filtered and no longer appear in the interface.
      AWS interface type
  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 ONE 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.
    AWS BGP details

    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 ONE-Created-Hosted Connection.
    VIF details

    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 ONE Portal.

Adding AWS connection details to Aruba 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 Aruba Orchestrator. This involves adding a LAN interface to the appliance and configuring BGP settings, ASNs, VLANs, and MD5 values.

To add a LAN interface in Aruba Orchestrator

  1. 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.

    AWS connection details

  2. Collect the connection details from the Megaport ONE Portal.
    To display the details, click the gear icon Gear icon for the AWS connection from your MVE and click the Details view. Note the value for the A-End VLAN.

  3. Log in to Aruba Orchestrator.

  4. Go to Configuration > Networking | Routing | Deployment.

  5. Locate the appliance by the hostname and click the Edit (pencil) icon.

    Edit appliance

  6. If you do not have a wan0 LAN side interface: Click +Add next to LAN Interfaces and in the Interface drop-down list, choose wan0.
    If you already have a wan0 LAN interface, click +IP to add a new configuration.

  7. In the VLAN field, enter the A-End VLAN for the AWS connection (found in the Megaport ONE Portal in Step 2).

  8. Optionally, select a preconfigured Label or select None.
  9. In the IP/Mask field, enter the IP address and mask for the MVE side of the AWS connection.
    This value is the Your Peer IP value from the AWS console from Step 1.

  10. For the Next Hop, enter the IP address for the Amazon side of the connection.
    This value is the Amazon Peer IP value from the AWS console.

  11. Specify in and out bandwidth values.
    The bandwidth must be equal to or less than the MVE bandwidth limit.
    This image shows sample configuration values.

    Aruba LAN interface details

  12. Click Apply.

  13. If prompted, reboot the appliance.
    A reboot is required only when adding the first LAN interface, as the system switches the appliance from server mode to router mode.

After the device is reachable from Orchestrator, you can configure a BGP session.

  1. In Orchestrator, go to Configuration > Networking | Routing | BGP.
  2. Click the Edit (pencil) icon for the appliance.
  3. Move the slider to Enable BGP.
  4. Provide the Autonomous System Number.
    This is the BGP ASN (for the MVE), collected in Step 1.

  5. In the Router ID field, enter the loopback 0 IP specified during the initial acceptance of the appliance or another system IP, as required by your network.
    You can use any IP address on the appliance, such as the interface IP on the MVE side of the VXC or the transit IP address.

    Aruba enable BGP

  6. In the BGP Peers section, click Add and provide the following information:

    • Peer IP – This is the Amazon Peer IP address, collected in Step 1 from the AWS console.
    • Local Interface – Choose the associated LAN interface (the interface is in the format wan0+VLAN).
    • Peer ASN. This is the AWS ASN. By default, this value is 64512.
    • Peer Type - Choose Branch.
    • Enable MD5 Password - If required, select this and then enter and confirm your MD5 password.

    Add BGP peer for Aruba

  7. Click Add.

  8. Click Apply.

It takes several seconds for the configuration to be pushed to the appliance. Click the refresh icon to update the data from the appliance.

When successful, the Peer State indicates Established:

BGP peer state for Aruba

You can also check the BGP status for the VIF in the AWS console and verify the AWS BGP session is up:

BGP peer state for Aruba in AWS console

Validating your AWS connection

You can review connection details, including the connection state, from the CLI with these commands:

  • show interface wan0.<subinterface id> – Displays configuration details and current status for the appliances.
  • show bgp neighbors or show bgp summary – Displays configuration details and current status for the BGP neighbors.

To start a CLI session from Orchestrator

  1. In Orchestrator, use the mouse to hover over the appliance and click the Appliance Menu icon to the right of the appliance name.
    BGP peer state for Aruba

  2. Choose CLI Session from the menu.
    BGP peer state for Aruba

  3. Enter enable mode to use the recommended CLI commands to display configuration details.


Last update: 2023-09-21