About connecting to Express Route via Equinix Fabric

Question

About connecting to Express Route via Equinix Fabric

When connecting to Express Route via Equinix Fabric, is it possible to connect in a single virtual connection instead of a redundant virtual connection?

Answer 1

Hello @Lei Zhang ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Platform. Thank you for reaching out & hope you are doing well.

I understand that you would like to know if it is possible to connect to Express Route via Equinix Fabric in a single virtual connection instead of a redundant virtual connection.

Each ExpressRoute circuit consists of two connections to two Microsoft Enterprise edge routers (MSEEs) at an ExpressRoute Location from the connectivity provider/your network edge. Microsoft requires dual BGP connection from the connectivity provider/your network edge – one to each MSEE. You may choose not to deploy redundant devices/Ethernet circuits at your end.

You may terminate both the primary and secondary connections of an ExpressRoute circuits on the same Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). Additionally, you may also configure both the primary and secondary connections via the same port of a CPE (either by terminating the two connections under different sub-interfaces or by merging the two connections within the partner network).

This is possible irrespective of the ExpressRoute service provider/partner that you are using.

However, this will compromise the high availability of ExpressRoute within your on-premises network and on the partner network segment as well. Also, a redundant Layer 3 connectivity configuration is a requirement for our SLA to be valid.
Refer : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/expressroute-introduction#redundancy
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/designing-for-high-availability-with-expressroute

But if you don't want to use the redundant connections, you can talk to the ExpressRoute service provider/partner (Equinix in your case) to terminate both the primary and secondary connections at the same interface or port and connect it in a single virtual connection.

Kindly let us know if the above helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

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