How do I prepare for maintenance on my Direct Connect connection?

Short description

When a Direct Connect connection is down for maintenance, that connection can be down from a few minutes to a few hours. To prepare for this downtime, take one of the following actions:

• Request a redundant Direct Connect connection.
• Configure a virtual private network (VPN) connection as a backup.

It's a best practice to shift your traffic to another circuit during Direct Connect maintenance. To prevent any production traffic disruption, use one of the preceding options before the scheduled maintenance period. You can also use the AWS Direct Connect Resiliency Toolkit to perform scheduled failover tests and verify the resiliency of your connections.

Resolution

Request a redundant Direct Connect connection

If you request multiple connections to the same co-location site from the same AWS account, then AWS configures them on separate routers. Direct Connect performs maintenance on a single router at a time, so one connection stays up.

If you request a redundant connection at a different co-location site, then you have a secondary connection when the first is down for maintenance. If an infrastructure event affects the entire co-location site, then you can use this second connection.

For information on requesting a new Direct Connect connection, see Request an AWS Direct Connect dedicated connection.

Configure a VPN connection as a backup

For a shorter-term or lower-cost solution, configure an AWS Site-to-Site VPN as a failover option for a Direct Connect connection. Because VPN connections generally offer less bandwidth than Direct Connect connections, be sure that your use case or application can tolerate a lower bandwidth.

Related information

VPN connection as a backup to AWS DX connection example

What is AWS Direct Connect?

Connect your VPC to remote networks using AWS Virtual Private Network