Introduction
In this second part of the blog series, I will configure the OCI FastConnects. This blog series will help us connect two Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Regions using the Equinix Fabric, which can replace the OCI Remote Peering Connection (RPC), which has all the benefits of Equinix SLAs.
Please go here for the main page.
Please go here for the Equinix FCRs and IP-WAN Network configuration, the first part of the blog.
Please go here for the Equinix Connection to OCI and activation of the AS Override configuration, which is the last part of the blog.
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.
In this Blog, we will use the following technologies:
– 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 FastConnect Partner Connectivity Model – for more information, please access official documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Network/Concepts/fastconnectoverview.htm
Prerequisites
In this blog, we will cover how to provision OCI FastConnect. To do this, we will need the following resources already provisioned and configured:
1. 2 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
2. Prepare and have in handy all the needed data to configure this solution. In our case, what I have prepared is:
# Ashburn FastConnect BGP subnet = 172.16.0.0/30
# Phoenix FastConnect BGP subnet = 172.16.0.4/30
# Equinix ASH BGP ASN = 13531
# Equinix PHX BGP ASN = 36641
# Oracle BGP ASN = 31898
Solution Description
This solution does not focus on redundancy, and the connectivity will be based on this network diagram:
This blog will focus on how we can configure OCI FastConnect using Equinix Partner Provisioning, which is done by following the following steps:
a. Login to OCI Console in the desired tenancy
b. Select Ashburn Region.
c. Go to Networking and click on FastConnect under Customer Connectivity.
d. Select Create FastConnect. Optionally, you can select the desired compartment where the FastConnect will be.
e. Select the Connection type as “FastConnect Partner,” select Partner as “Equinix Fabric,” and click Next.
f. Provide a name for this connection, select DRG and bandwidth, and fill in the BGP IP addresses for Customer IP (Equinix in this case) and Oracle IP. After we add the IP addresses, we need to provide the ASN on the Equinix side; in this case, we used 65000. Optional you can select MTU to 9000 to take full advantage of the Jumbo MTU.
g. Now that we have configured this FastConnect, it will appear as shown in the picture below. On this screen, we can see the OCID of this Fastconnect. This OCID is needed in the part tree of this blog to create the Equinix side connection.
h. Now we can move to the Phoenix region and create a FastConnect in that OCI Region using the steps in this section, points (a to (f with the difference that for the Phoenix region, we will use IPs from the Phoenix FastConnect BGP subnet and Equinix Phoenix FCR ASN number.
At this point, we should have 2 FastConnects configured in the state “Pending Partner,” one in each region.
This concludes the configuration of the OCI FastConnects. In the next blog, which can be found here, we will configure Equinix Connection to OCI and activate the AS Override configuration.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. Thank you for reading!