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Lumen® Dynamic Connections Ethernet support: Overview

With Dynamic Connections Ethernet, you can provision real-time, layer-2 network connections between one of your locations (an Ethernet endpoint device) and partner interconnects, including cloud providers such as AWS, Google, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure/Azure Gov, and Oracle/Oracle Gov. Connections are billed hourly and require no long-term contracts.
 

New to Dynamic Connections Ethernet? Learn how to get ready for Dynamic Connections Ethernet service

Managing Dynamic Connections Ethernet

Use Control Center to create and manage connections:

Managing connections

For connecions to Microsoft Azure, your equipment must support 802.1ad (Q-in-Q). Before creating a connection, we recommend configuring your router for Q-in-Q. Q-in-Q can be difficult to set up, but use the example below to help you set up your router correctly.

Here’s an example below with a Cisco router.

You’ll assign the outer tag in Control Center and the inner tag in the Azure portal (peering VLAN).

‘Primary EVC VLAN – 100 - Control Center
‘Secondary EVC VLAN – 200 - Control Center
‘Private Peering – VLAN 300 - Azure portal
‘MSFT Peering – VLAN 400 - Azure portal


interface GigabitEthernet0/1.100300
  encapsulation dot1Q 100 second-dot1q 300 ‘Azure Private primary peer
  description "Cloud Connect"
  ip address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 255.255.255.252


interface GigabitEthernet0/1.200300
  encapsulation dot1Q 200 second-dot1q 300 ‘Azure Private secondary peer
  description "Cloud Connect"
  ip address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 255.255.255.252


interface GigabitEthernet0/1.100400
  encapsulation dot1Q 100 second-dot1q 400 ‘MSFT primary peer
  description "Cloud Connect"
  ip address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 255.255.255.252


interface GigabitEthernet0/1.200400
  encapsulation dot1Q 200 second-dot1q 400 ‘MSFT secondary peer
  description "Cloud Connect"
  ip address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 255.255.255.252

Classes of service for Dynamic Connections Ethernet

Higher classes of service offer higher availability SLAs and allow you to increase traffic prioritization for your EVC:

  • Basic (best effort): The service may be oversubscribed on the Lumen network.

  • Enhanced (mid class): Enhanced EVCs (ethernet virtual circuits) can still be oversubscribed like Basic class of service EVCs; however, traffic is marked with an internal class of service marking which will prioritize your traffic over best-effort traffic during times of congestion. For EVCs with this class of service, bandwidth is not reserved on the Lumen network and traffic will not take priority over real-time traffic in the network.

  • Dedicated (real time): The quality of service offering with highest priority on the Lumen network. In addition, Lumen reserves the bandwidth for this EVC across the network on each ring that the EVC touches. Once it is dedicated to you, that bandwidth (and the corresponding CE-VLANs) sits in reserve regardless of how much bandwidth you use.

Dynamic Connections Ethernet support