April 30, 2021 Release Notes

New features

Cloud-to-marketplace connectivity

You can now connect marketplace members directly to supported cloud environments.

For example, there might be a SaaS provider that you want to have access to data stored in your AWS account. This will allow you to create a secure, high-capacity connection directly to that third-party provider.

Dedicated cloud connections

You can request that a virtual circuit extend between your Dedicated cloud port and a PacketFabric marketplace member.

As part of this change, you will now see any Dedicated cloud ports that you own listed under Select Source Port when creating a marketplace virtual circuit:

For more information, see Create a Marketplace Connection and Marketplace and IX Connections Overview.

AWS Hosted cloud connections

You can also create a Hosted cloud connection between your AWS environment and a PacketFabric marketplace member.

As part of this change, you will see a new action when creating an AWS Hosted connection:

When you click this link, you will see options to select a marketplace member and location:

For more information, see Create a Hosted AWS Connection and Marketplace and IX Connections Overview.

For this initial release, note the following:

• You cannot filter marketplace members or search by Routing ID.
• This functionality is only available for Hosted connections to AWS, with additional CSPs to follow.

Reseller Admin Portal

The Reseller Admin Portal gives PacketFabric resellers the tools to invite customers, access customer accounts to manage services, and gather analytics about the purchasing activity of their customers.

The portal is accompanied by its own set of API calls, which are documented here:
https://api.packetfabric.com/reseller/openapi/redoc.html

We have also implemented a new On-Behalf header for resellers to send requests on behalf of their customers.

For more information, see Reseller Admin Portal.

Changes and enhancements

Search for LAG members

Previously, when searching the interfaces table, searches could only be performed against LAGs and not their members.

Now searches will return any LAG member ports that match the search criteria. For more information, see Searching in the Portal.

Option to create an EPL virtual circuit

Previously, if you wanted to create an EPL (Ethernet Private Line) virtual circuit, you needed to provision a point-to-point connection. Now when creating a virtual circuit, you have the option to make it EPL or EVPL.

This is useful if you want EPL capabilities and already have two access ports that you want to use.

Note that - as with a point-to-point connection - an EPL virtual circuit cannot share a port with other circuits. In other words, a port can have multiple EVPL connections, but only one EPL.

For more information about the differences between EPL and EVPL, see Virtual Circuit Ethernet Features and Ethernet Service Specifications.

Improved marketplace listing format

We made several enhancements to how marketplace listings are displayed.

Before

After

This includes the following changes:

• Routing ID is clearly labeled.

• Added a link to the company website, which will open in a new tab.

• Long company descriptions will no longer cut off.

• Added a View Services action. This means that the entire card is no longer clickable, enabling links within its contents.

• Listings with only one service and one location will no longer go straight to the provisioning page, but will follow the same flow of other services.

• Companies can now view their own services via the marketplace; however, they will not be allowed to select a service.

Hide create actions from Read Only users

Read Only users will no longer see buttons/icons/menu options to provision services.

While Read Only users never had permission to complete these actions, they were able to initiate them. This often caused confusion for users.

Miscellaneous user interface and functionality changes

• The Cloud Router ID is now shown on the details pages of its connections.
• Updated the point-to-point connections table to be more consistent with other tables within the portal. Rather than showing the full location of the A and Z interfaces, it will only show the POP.
• Removed the option to add incoming and outgoing rate limits when creating a virtual circuit. You can still set rate limits when editing the virtual circuit.
• For users with only one billing account, the Billing Items table will automatically populate with items rather than requiring them to select an account first.
• When ordering a Dedicated cloud connection, the Billing Summary will now include costs for the cross connect. While we always billed for the cross connect, those costs were not immediately visible.

Bug fixes

• Eligible ports were not showing as options when adding members to a LAG.
• Some error metrics were missing from point-to-point statistics.
• Users could not edit Azure BGP settings once a session was established.
• Country information was missing from the locations page.
• Multi-factor authentication setup returned a 502 error.
• Portal did not allow 50 Gbps Cloud Router connections. This was an error, and they are now allowed.
• Invalid inputs in cross connect billing could result in a fatal error.
• Deleting contacts from a request alias could result in an unexpected validation error.
• Certain customers had access to billing data for virtual circuits that they did not own; this has been fixed.
• Multiple Azure connections were not allowed to use the same VLAN; this has been fixed.
• 404 error when viewing details for AWS Hosted connections.
• Some pages experienced slow loading times.
• Dedicated port pages displayed incorrect descriptions.
• Incorrect error message displayed when creating a Hosted Azure Cloud Router connection.
• QR code for multi-factor authentication did not load properly.
• Some user interface buttons had inconsistent styling.
• Network IPs for Azure connections were not allowed. This was an error, and they are now allowed.
• Activity log sometimes encountered a server error.
• Dedicated port creation page displayed checkmark at the wrong height.
• Skipping service class selection (metro vs longhaul) when creating a Dedicated connection produced an unhandled error.
• Services page could produce a database error with certain parameters.
• IBM portal was not properly updating descriptions for Cloud Router connections.
• Virtual circuits were not removed when an IBM Cloud Router connection was rejected.

Knowledge base

New pages

• VLAN Tagging
• Redundancy in Google Interconnect Connections

Updates

• PacketFabric Frequently Asked Questions: Added sections on cloud connectivity and reseller accounts.
• Common Error Messages: Added the error that users see when disabling has been provisioned for maintenance activities.
• Point-to-Point Connections: Updated to ensure screenshots and navigation still match the portal UI.
• Added a scrollbar to the sidebar for desktop users. Navigation had become unbearably irritating on long pages. ಠ_ಠ