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Introduction

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Connections are circuits that are routed between two On Demand ports.

There are three different connection types:

Ethernet connection between ports in data centres and enterprise buildings

Cloud connection between a physical port in a data centre or enterprise building and a cloud port

Internet connection that terminates on a physical port in a data centre or enterprise building

This section covers Ethernet connections.

Topologies

On Demand ports can be dynamically configured to support either Ethernet Private Line (“point to point”) based on transparent handover or Ethernet Virtual Private Line “(hub and spoke”) services based on a VLAN handover.

EPL and EVPL are not treated as different service types in the On Demand platform, although the services are configured differently.

Ethernet Private Line

The Ethernet Private Line (“point to point”) topology is illustrated below.

Ethernet p2p

Ethernet Virtual Private Line

Ethernet Virtual Private Line (“Hub and Spoke”), based on a VLAN handover at the A end and port based handover at the B end is shown below:

Ethernet P2P 2

EVPL (mesh)

On Demand enables a variation of Ethernet Virtual Private Line, based on a VLAN handover at both the A end B ends – supporting a mesh topology.

Ethernet P2P 3

Bandwidth

Connection bandwidths

On Demand connections support bandwidths between 10Mbps and 20Gbps. Higher bandwidths are available on request.

The below table shows the bandwidths that are supported.
Port Core port speeds (On Demand Flex and Traditional / Fixed pricing models)
  • 1Gbps
  • 10Gbps
  • 100Gbps for key data centres only
 		1/10/100Gbps ports – full rate port speeds (customers can request circuit connections up to the physical port speed)

Overbooking is available on request for new On Demand ports used as an NNI
Connection All locations:
10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500Mbps, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10Gbps

Key data centres only:
20Gbps 		Logical Ethernet circuit connection between 2 On Demand ports

The supported bandwidth of an On Demand circuit connection is based on the bandwidth of the ports at the A and B end points. This applies to both fixed term and flexible contracts.

For point to point (EPL) services where the A end and B end port speeds are equal, the circuit connection bandwidth is based on bandwidth ranges that are related to the speed of both ports.

This is illustrated below:

Ethernet P2P 4

For EVPL services the NNI bandwidth is higher than the port bandwidth at the customer site and under this scenario, the maximum circuit connection bandwidth is determined by the B end port speed. There is no restriction at the A end port configured as a VLAN based NNI aggregating multiple circuit connections.

For example, the supported bandwidth range for a circuit connection routed between a 10Gbps NNI and a 1Gbps B end port is 10Mbps-1Gbps (i.e. the range associated with the lower speed port).

Customers should note that these bandwidth ranges apply to Ethernet connections between two physical On Demand ports. There are no restrictions on cloud and internet access services.

Data centre & enterprise connections

Connection charges

Under the On Demand flex pricing model, circuit connections are based on 1 hour and 3/6/12/24/36 month commitments. Customers are charged a per hour rental based on the bandwidth and commitment.

Under the traditional/fixed pricing model, circuit connections are based on fixed 12/24/36 month contracts.

For further details, please refer to the pricing section.

Connection Charges

VLAN configuration

Connections have three VLAN modes, which apply to each end of the circuit connection:
Open port 1 circuit connection per port Port based handover, all VLANs are passed transparently
Add VLAN Multiple circuit connections per port (Colt adds VLAN tag) VLAN based handover, 1 VLAN per Connection. VLAN added on egress, towards customer (in translation mode). VLAN can be S-VLAN (88a8) or C-VLAN (8100)
Filter VLAN Multiple circuit connections per port (Colt filters VLAN tags) VLAN filtered on ingress to Colt network (against a single VLAN number).

The supported combinations are shown in the below table (A end and B ends can be used interchangeably).

Notes:

  1. The cloud end is automatically configured as “add VLAN”
  2. Only 8100 CVLANs supported at AWS end
  3. Supports different VLAN at each end. VLAN PCP will not be preserved
  4. For further details on cloud VLAN configurations, please refer to the cloud connectivity section
Open port Open port Standard Ethernet Private Line (EPL) configuration Ethernet Line (EPL) Supported N/A N/A Supported
Add VLAN Open port Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) configuration Ethernet Hub & Spoke Supported Supported Supported Supported
Add VLAN Add VLAN Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL), hub presentation at both ends (note 3) N/A Supported Supported Supported Supported
Filter VLAN Filter VLAN As per scenario 3 above, except VLAN IDs are preserved (same at each end) Ethernet Line (EVPL) Supported N/A N/A Supported

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