March 15, 2021 Release Notes

New features

Fully automated Oracle FastConnect Partner connections

(Released March 5)

You can now create and manage Hosted connections to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. All you need is the OCID associated with the FastConnect.

Previously, Oracle FastConnect connections went through our marketplace and required some additional manual configuration before they were usable.

We currently have on-ramps in the following regions:

• US East (Ashburn)
• US West (Phoenix)

For more information, see our Oracle docs.

Oracle Cloud Router connections

Cloud Router customers can now add connections to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

For more information, see our Cloud Router docs.

New dashboard layout

Our UI/UX Designer, Andrew Gormely, has unveiled a long-awaited overhaul of our portal dashboard:

Before:

After:

Changes include:

1

The service counts have been relocated to the sidebar.

Instead, we have a new, more descriptive layout for the Create New Service shortcuts.

2

There is now an action to create a PacketFabric-outbound cross connect for access ports, point-to-point connections, and Dedicated cloud connections.

3

The Cloud Connectivity action has been split into two separate actions for creating Hosted and Dedicated cloud connections.

4

There is also now an action to go directly to the marketplace, where you can create a third-party virtual circuit.

5

The activity log is now accessible from the dashboard.

6

A helpful message appears for users who do not have any active notifications.

When notifications do appear, they are streamlined to show only the most relevant information to avoid crowding (but still include a link to the full text).

Notifications will also have color-coding to indicate the type (Emergency, Routine, Upgrade):

7

The sidebar now includes a link to provide feedback, make feature requests, and upvote other users’ feature requests. This functionality was introduced in our January 28, 2021 release, but had been somewhat buried under Support > Contact Us.

8

There is now a top-level link to the knowledge base.

Most would agree that this is the most important feature of this release, overshadowing everything else.

Changes and enhancements

• Added a green confirmation checkbox after completing sections of the order form for dedicated port connections on Cloud Routers.

• Added a green confirmation checkbox to indicate that fields have been validated when creating an IBM connection.

• Added a loading indicator for Documents and Activity pages under Cloud Router connections.

• Removed the option to order outbound cross connects from the point-to-point connection and Dedicated cloud connection order pages. We found it was causing customer confusion.

  Instead, you can order an outbound cross connect after ordering the initial service, in a separate transaction. This is similar to how outbound cross connects are treated for ports.

Bug fixes

• Error when trying to access the Router Logs page for a Cloud Router.
• Portal only showing 200 PoPs to select from when creating a new port.
• Wrong value being displayed in the Origin column in the Routes table for Cloud Router connections.
• Port count in sidebar incorrect for customers with a large number of ports.
• Removed an unnecessary “Create Cloud Router” tooltip that was irritating our UX guy.
• Some buttons were misaligned on smaller screens.

Knowledge base

Updates

• Added “Related API” links to pages throughout the knowledge base.

New pages

• Common Error Messages