AWS Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect

For AWS, NL-ix serves as the Transport provider for the Direct Connect service. In short the process is like this:

1. The customer orders a Direct Connect at AWS, stating to which AWS locations they want to connect. For each Direct Connect, the customer gets a LOA.
2. The LOA is sent to NL-ix, which we sent through to the relevant datacenter to connect to our infrastructure.
3. NL-ix makes sure that a VLAN is configured over the created connection, from the demarcation with AWS towards the customer port.
4. The customer sets up the correct BGP Peering in order to create a working connection.

Difference hosted and dedicated

For AWS, NL-ix offers dedicated connections of 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and 100 Gbps ports.
Hosted connections are not supplied by NL-ix.

The main differences between a hosted and a dedicated connection lies in the Virtual Interfaces (VIFS). When you have a Direct Connect you must configure Virtual Interfaces to enable access to AWS services.

A Hosted Direct Connect supports one (1) VIF. If you have more than one VPC’s in AWS you will need multiple Hosted Direct Connects to access these multiple VPC’s.

A Dedicated Direct Connect supports 50 VIF or 51 (in case of a VPC Transit Gateway) and therefore can be more efficient. Each VIF communicates with one VPC.

AWS Direct Connect supports Private VIF’s for communication with your private cloud environment(s) in AWS and Public VIF’s for access to public services such as Amazon S3.