Introduction

This blog is the main page of a three-part blog series in which I will present how to connect two Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) regions using Equinix Fabric. This solution can replace the OCI Remote Peering Connection (RPC) and has all the benefits of the Equinix SLAs.
For this connectivity model, we will use two FastConnects with Equinix as a Partner, two Equinix Fabric Cloud Routers, four Equinix Connections, one IP Wan Network and the Equinix Fabric. I will not focus on redundancy options.

 

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In this scenario, we will use the following technologies:
–        Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Network/Tasks/managingVCNs.htm
–        Dynamic Routing Gateway v2 (DRGv2) – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Network/Tasks/managingDRGs.htm
–        OCI Compute – for more information, please access official documentation at https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/
–        OCI FastConnect Partner Connectivity Model – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Network/Concepts/fastconnectoverview.htm
–        Equinix as a Partner – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.equinix.com/en-us/Content/Interconnection/Fabric/connections/Fabric-oracle-fast-connect.htm
–        Equinix Cloud Router – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.equinix.com/en-us/Content/Interconnection/FCR/FCR-intro.htm
–        Equinix IP-WAN connections for FCRs in different metro locations – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.equinix.com/en-us/Content/Interconnection/FCR/connections/FCR-ip-wan-intro.htm
–        Equinix Connections – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.equinix.com/en-us/Content/Interconnection/Fabric/connections/Fabric-connections.htm
 

Prerequisites

This blog will cover how to provision OCI FastConnect and Equinix Fabric. To do this, we will need the following resources already provisioned and configured:
1.     Access to the OCI Console portal with the possibility to provision OCI required components
2.     VCNs—In our case, we will have a VCN in the Ashburn region with 10.10.0.0/16 CIDR and another VCN in the Phoenix region with 10.20.0.0/16 CIDR, with all routing and Security List / Network Security Groups to allow connectivity between Ashburn and Phoenix CIDR Blocks.
3.     There are two DRGs—in our case, one DRG in Ashburn and one DRG in Phoenix—with VCN attachments and routing in place to allow traffic between Ashburn VCN and Phoenix VCN.
4.     There are two compute VMs—in our case, one compute VM in Ashburn with IP 10.10.10.193 and one in Phoenix with IP 10.20.10.165.
5.     Access to the Equinix portal with the possibility to provision and Order Equinix required components.
6.     Prepare and have in handy all the needed data to configure this solution. In our case, what I have prepared is:
# Ashburn VCN CIDR = 10.10.0.0/16
# Ashburn subnet = 10.10.10.0/24
# Ashburn Compute instance IP = 10.10.10.193
# Ashburn FastConnect BGP subnet = 172.16.0.0/30
# Phoenix VCN CIDR = 10.20.0.0/16
# Phoenix subnet = 10.20.10.0/24
# Phoenix Compute instance IP = 10.20.10.165
# Phoenix FastConnect BGP subnet = 172.16.0.4/30
# Equinix BGP ASN = Equinix FCR ASN (allocated at deployment of the FCR)
# Oracle BGP ASN = 31898


Solution Description

1.     For Equinix FCRs and IP WAN side configuration, please go here for complete details.
2.     For OCI FastConnect side configuration, please go here for complete details.
3.     For Equinix Connection to OCI, activation of AS Override feature and validation , please go here for complete details.

You can follow along on this video to see the step by step process in action.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Thank you for reading!