IBM Cloud Direct Link Connect Overview

IBM offers two Direct Link services: Direct Link Dedicated and Direct Link Connect. PacketFabric is a partner for Direct Link Connect (2.0).

Direct Link Connect allows you to seamlessly extend your IBM Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) into your on-premises network.

This means that you can avoid traversing the public internet to access your cloud resources, resulting in lower latency, higher throughput, and increased stability.

IBM Direct Link Connect diagram

Locations

PacketFabric is present in the following IBM Cloud on-ramps:

  • Washington D.C. WDC1
  • San Francisco/Silicon Valley SFO
  • Dallas DAL2

IBM Cloud uses “local markets” to determine which locations are reachable through the Global and Local routing options.

This means that with Local routing you are granted unlimited ingress and egress traffic to all other sites within the local market at no extra cost. However, you cannot reach any resources outside that local market unless you enable the Global routing add-on.

On-ramp IBM market Reachable IBM sites with Local routing
Dallas DAL21 Dallas Dallas Region
Dallas 12
Dallas 13
Dallas 10
Dallas 01
Dallas 02
Dallas 7
Houston 2
San Francisco/Silicon Valley SFO2 San Jose San Jose 1
San Jose 4
Washington D.C. WDC13 Washington D.C. Washington DC Region
Washington 6
Washington 7
Washington 1
New York City 3
  1. Labeled Dallas 4 (PoP) in the IBM Cloud console.
  2. Labeled San Jose 2 (PoP) in the IBM Cloud console.
  3. Labeled Washington 2 (PoP) in the IBM Cloud console.

For example, if you select the Washington D.C. on-ramp, you can access resources across the Washington D.C. region and a New York City site. However, if you want to access resources in the San Jose region, you must enable the Global routing add-on.

Pricing

PacketFabric follows the standard Hosted cloud connectivity prices found here: Cloud Connectivity

IBM pricing is calculated based on the following:

Monthly port charges

  • Metered - A lower port charge, but additional charges based on how much you use.

  • Unmetered - A higher port charge, but no additional charges based on usage.

Monthly routing charges

  • Local - No charges.

  • Global - A capacity-based fee for access resources outside the local market (see above).

For more information, see Pricing for IBM Cloud Direct Link.

Technical notes and specifications

General notes

  • Row
    • Specification
    • Notes
  • Row
    • Available capacities
    • 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, or 5 Gbps
  • Row
  • Row
    • Redundancy
    • There is no inherent redundancy in a Direct Link connection. You can add redundancy by building a secondary connection across unique equipment to avoid having a single point of failure.
  • Row
    • Jumbo frame support
    • Up to 9214 bytes
  • Row
    • ECMP
    • Supported, but heavily discouraged by IBM to use as a means of redundancy.

Sources:
FAQs for Direct Link
About IBM Cloud Direct Link (2.0)

BGP notes

You must set up BGP between your on-premises router and the IBM XCR to reach your VPC.

  • Row
    • Specification
    • Notes
  • Row
    • IBM-side ASN
    • 13884
  • Row

    • Client-side ASN

    • Public: You can use the PacketFabric public ASN 4556 or a public ASN owned by you.

      Private: Any private ASN excluding the following (reserved by IBM):
      64512, 64513, 65100, 65201-65234, 65402-65433, 65500, and 4201065000-4201065999

  • Row

    • IP subnet ranges

    • A public IP address that you own or one of the following:

      10.254.0.0/16
      172.16.0.0/12
      192.168.0.0/16
      169.254.0.0/16

  • Row
    • IPv6
    • Not supported.

Sources:
FAQs for Direct Link
Ordering IBM Cloud Direct Link Connect

Updated on 10 Jan 2022