Common Issues with Direct Connect Connection
Question
You are configuring a Direct Connect Connection from AWS to your on-premise environment.
You have configured a 1 GB Ethernet connection.
You have verified with your AWS account manager and your colocation provider that everything is connected, and all of your information is correct.
But the link is still not working as expected.
Which of the following could be an issue?
Answers
Explanations
Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer
A. B. C. D.Answer - C.
The AWS Documentation mentions the following requirements for AWS Direct Connect connections.
1
Connections to AWS Direct Connect require single mode fiber, 1000BASE-LX (1310nm) for 1 gigabit Ethernet, or 10GBASE-LR (1310nm) for 10 gigabit Ethernet.
2
Auto Negotiation for the port must be disabled.
3
You must support 802.1Q VLANs across these connections.
4
Your network must support Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and BGP MD5 authentication.
For more information on Direct Connect, please refer to below URL:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/latest/UserGuide/dc-ug.pdfWhen setting up a Direct Connect Connection from AWS to your on-premises environment, there are several things to consider that could cause issues with the connection. In this case, you have configured a 1 GB Ethernet connection and verified all information is correct, but the link is not working as expected.
A. Your network supports BGP which is an issue.
This is not likely to be the issue as BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is supported by Direct Connect and is often used to exchange routing information between the customer's network and AWS. BGP is a critical component in enabling a dynamic routing path between your on-premises network and AWS.
B. The connection must be 10 GB's or greater.
This is not true. Direct Connect Connections can be configured with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps. Therefore, the connection speed of 1 Gbps should not be an issue.
C. Auto Negotiation for the port is not disabled.
Auto-negotiation is a process that allows devices to negotiate the best possible link speed and duplex mode based on the capabilities of both devices. Direct Connect supports auto-negotiation by default. Therefore, disabling auto-negotiation is not recommended, and it is not likely to be the cause of the issue.
D. The connections have support for 802.1Q VLANs which is an issue.
This is the most likely issue. 802.1Q VLAN tagging is a standard method of creating virtual LANs (VLANs) on an Ethernet network. AWS Direct Connect allows customers to use VLAN tagging to connect to multiple Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and link aggregation groups (LAGs) over a single connection. However, if VLAN tagging is configured incorrectly or not configured at all, it can prevent traffic from flowing correctly over the connection. Therefore, checking the VLAN tagging configuration should be the first step in troubleshooting the issue.
