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How to order a DirectCLOUD connection for Azure

Joseph Thorwest Updated by Joseph Thorwest

This article provides a step-by-step guide for selecting and ordering our DirectCLOUD connection product for Microsoft Azure via our portal.

Prerequisites

You have to create the ExpressRoute circuit first in your Azure Portal. You find an instruction here.

Guide

  1. Choose your provider
    1. In the DE-CIX portal start with Add Service and choose Add DirectCLOUD Service.
      A new page appears guiding you through the provisioning process.
      Please note: Compared to other DirectCLOUD services, a redundant connection is not optional but mandatory for Azure.
    2. Click on the AZURE Icon to proceed and then push Next.
  2. Provider Credentials
    1. Provide the Service Key of the ExpressRoute you want to provision. If you need any help in retrieving this information, click on the how-to link.
    2. Click Next to proceed.
  3. Service Details
    1. Specify the following service details:
      • Cloud On-Ramp Location: when you ordered the service key, you already specified this parameter
      • Metro Area of your Access: please specify in which metro we should handover the service to you
      • Bandwidth: this gets automatically defined, depending on what you have specified in the Azure portal
      • External reference and Purchase order are optional fields and can be any text.
      • Contract duration: you can choose the duration of the services and get different quotes  
    2. Click Next to proceed.
  4. Check all your values and place your order by clicking on the Order button. You can optionally add an additional address for order confirmation.
    Now the order is processing. Once complete, you see an order confirmation and receive an email.
  5. Provisioning
    1. Click on Next to go to the technical part of the ordering process.
      Based on your configuration you can add the cloud VLAN to either an Access port or a Cloud ROUTER. For this example, we connect it to an access.
    2. Click on Add connection details.
  6. Create the primary VLAN
    You can choose to complete this step later if needed. For this purpose, click here.
    1. Specify your DE-CIX Access. This is the port where we hand over the service to you.
    2. Choose if you want to change the VLAN-ID of the Azure Private Peering or if you want to preserve VLAN.
      We recommend preserving it. By doing this, we send the inner VLAN ID configured in the Azure portal to Microsoft. It is transparent to you.
      If you preserved the VLAN, select qinq to add the outer VLAN ID.
    3. Specify the VLAN ethertype too.
    4. Press Next and configure the service for the Secondary VLAN.

After configuring the Secondary VLAN, you’ve successfully created the DirectCLOUD connection, and you see the Cloud order completed screen.

 

Need help? Get in touch with our customer service.

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