Direct Connect gateway attachments in AWS Cloud WAN - AWS Network Manager
PrerequisitesLimitationsRoute propagationAvailable RegionsPricing

Direct Connect gateway attachments in AWS Cloud WAN

AWS Cloud WAN now supports native integration with AWS Direct Connect, simplifying connectivity between your on-premises networks and the AWS cloud. The new capability enables you to directly attach your Direct Connect gateways to Cloud WAN without the need for an intermediate AWS Transit Gateway, allowing seamless connectivity between your data centers or offices with Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPCs) across AWS Regions globally.

Cloud WANallows you to build, monitor, and manage a unified global network that interconnects your resources in the AWS cloud and your on-premises environments. Direct Connect allows you to create a dedicated network connection to AWS bypassing the public Internet and provides improved application performance, greater privacy and security. Previously, you needed to deploy an intermediate transit gateway to interconnect your Direct Connect-based networks with Cloud WAN. Now you can directly attach your Direct Connect gateway to a Cloud WAN core network, simplifying connectivity between your on-premises locations and VPCs. Cloud WAN Direct Connect gateway attachments add support for automatic route propagation between AWS and on-premises networks using BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). Direct Connect gateway attachments also support existing Cloud WAN features, such as central policy-based management, tag-based attachment automation and segmentation for advanced security.

Prerequisites

The following are required before you can create a Direct Connect gateway attachment in a core network:

  • You must have a Direct Connect account and a valid Direct Connect gateway. A specific Direct Connect gateway can't be used for any other gateway types as long as it remains associated with a core network. For more information about Direct Connect, see the AWS Direct Connect User Guide.

Limitations

The following limits apply to Direct Connect gateway attachments in a core network:

  • You can't configure static routes pointing to a Direct Connect gateway attachment as the next hop in a core network policy. Routes must be dynamically advertised from the on-premises network to core network.

  • Direct Connect Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) communities are not supported in a Cloud WAN network.

  • You can't configure a list of allowed prefixes to be advertised over the Direct Connect gateway attachment from Cloud WAN to an on-premises network.

  • The ASN of a Direct Connect gateway must be outside of the ASN range configured for the core network. For example, if you have an ASN range of 64512 - 65534 for the core network, the ASN of the Direct Connect gateway must use an ASN outside of that range.

  • Private IP VPN and Connect attachments are not supported when a Direct Connect gateway attachment is the transport type.

Route propagation

A Direct Connect gateway attachments support BGP-based dynamic routing for both inbound and outbound directions.

For inbound routes,

  • Cloud WAN learns BGP routes advertised from your on-premises location via the Direct Connect gateway and the transit virtual interface. Routes are learnt in the segment route-tables of the associated core network edges for the attachment.

  • Routes learned in segment route table can be routed across all AWS Regions for that segment.

  • Cloud WAN follows the route evaluation order for the same prefixes learned over multiple attachments. See Route evaluation for more information.

For outbound routes,

  • Cloud WAN propagates routes from the segment route table to the Direct Connect gateway, which in turn advertises these routes over transit virtual interfaces to your on-premises locations via BGP.

  • Each core network edge associated with the Direct Connect gateway attachment advertises only its local routes towards the Direct Connect gateway.

  • The AS_PATH BGP attribute is retained in these route advertisements to your on-premises locations. For more information about AS_PATH and BGP, see Private virtual interface and transit virtual interface routing policies in the AWS Direct Connect User Guide.

Available Regions

Support for Direct Connect gateway attachments in a Cloud WAN core network is currently available in the following Regions:

AWS Region Description
ap-southeast-1 Asia Pacific (Singapore)
ap-southeast-2 Asia Pacific (Sydney)
ca-west-1 Canada West (Calgary)
eu-central-1 Europe (Frankfurt)
eu-north-1 Europe (Stockholm)
eu-west-1 Europe (Ireland)
eu-west-2 Europe (London)
il-central-1 Israel (Tel Aviv)
us-east-1 US East (N. Virginia)
us-east-2 US East (Ohio)
us-west-2 US West (Oregon)

Pricing

As with other Cloud WAN attachments, there is a per-hour charge and per-gigabyte charge for using Direct Connect gateway attachments in a Cloud WAN core network. For more details about pricing, see AWS Cloud WAN Pricing.

Topics