Metal Billed Fabric Virtual Connections¶

To request a Fabric Virtual Connection, open the Project's Interconnections page. Click + Request New Interconnection.

In the Interconnection Type section, click the drop-down under Fabric VC, and select Metal Billed.

• Select the location for the new connection from the drop-down. You will want to select the metro where both your Equinix Metal infrastructure lives and the metro where the CSP you are connecting to on Fabric is: these interconnections are metro-bound.
• Give a name to your connection.
• Choose whether you want a set of redundant ports. Redundant ports are highly recommended. Selecting a single port may result in significant downtime due to planned and unplanned outages.
• Set the connection speed by selecting it from the drop-down. Note: the speed cannot be changed after a service token is issued. A new request and service token is required to change the speed.

Next, you can pre-select the VLAN or VLANs that will be connected to your ports. The VLANs need to be in the same project and location as your Fabric Virtual Connection. If you do not have any eligible VLANs, you can click + Create a VLAN to create them. Choosing VLANs is optional; you can wait and connect VLANs after your Fabric Virtual Connection is provisioned.

Review the summary of your request. Click Submit Request to receive your a-side service tokens.

Tokens expire in 7 days. You should also receive an email with your tokens and expiration information. On the Interconnections page, your newly requested Fabric Virtual Connection will be listed on the Pending Requests tab.

To request a connection through the API, send a POST request to the /projects/{project_id}/connections endpoint.

curl -X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>" \
"https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/projects/{project_id}/connections" \
-d '{
    "name": "<string>",
    "description": "<string>",
    "contact_email": "<string>",
    "metro": "<metro_slug>",
    "type": "shared",
    "service_token_type": "a_side",
    "redundancy": "<redundant>",
    "speed": "<string>",
    "vlans": [ <integer>, <integer> ]  
}'

Request Fields:

• "name" (required) - The name of your new Fabric Virtual Connection.
• "description" (optional) - A user-friendly description for your Fabric Virtual Connection.
• "contact_email" - The preferred email used for communication and notifications about the Interconnection. Required when using a Project API key. Optional and defaults to your user email address when using a User API key.
• "metro" (required) - Select the metro where both your Equinix Metal infrastructure and the CSP destination on Fabric is: these interconnections are metro-bound.
• "type" (required) - To request a Shared Port, set to "shared". CHECK
• "service_token_type" (required) - The service token type for Fabric. Set the value to "a_side".
• "redundancy" (required) - Redundant ports are highly recommended. Selecting a single port may result in significant downtime due to planned and unplanned outages. Options are either “primary” or “redundant”.
• "speed" (optional) - Set the connection speed. Your options are "50mbps", "200mbps", "500mbps", "1gbps", "2gbps", 5gbps, or "10gbps". Note: the speed cannot be changed after a service token is issued. A new request and service token is required to change the speed.
• "vlans" (optional) - A list of VLAN IDs that will be attached to your port(s). The first one set will be used for the primary, and the second one set will be used for the secondary (if redundant). Choosing VLANs is optional; you can wait and connect VLANs after your Fabric Virtual Connection is provisioned.

A complete listing of fields is available in the API Reference.

Sending the request creates the Shared Port on Equinix Medal and generates your Fabric tokens. The tokens are included in the response in the "service_tokens" object. If you requested a redundant connection, you will receive two tokens.

"service_tokens": [ 
    {
    “id”: "ff0cf4dc-a897-426d-9621-13e5b975058c",
    “role”: "primary",
    “state”: "inactive",
        “max_allowed_speed”: 50000000,
    “service_token_type”: "a_side",
    “expires_at”: "2019-09-30T20:22:20",
    }
],

Tokens expire in 7 days. You should also receive an email with your service tokens and expiration information. You can check on your request and retrieve the tokens during this window by sending a GET request to the /connections/{connection_id} endpoint.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: $API_TOKEN' \
"https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}"

Once the Interconnection is established between Fabric and Equinix Metal, it will appear on your Project's Interconnections page, in the Fabric VC section, with Active as the status. Billing starts when the status becomes Active on the the Fabric Virtual Connection.

• Fabric Billed Fabric Virtual Connections have type Fabric Billed.
• Metal Billed Fabric Virtual Connections have type Metal Billed.
• Interconnections that were set up as Shared Ports are indicated with type Legacy.

Note that Dedicated Ports are managed at the organization level, so if there are any Dedicated Ports in your organization, they will also appear in the Dedicated Ports section.

Clicking on the Interconnection's name brings you to its Overview page, which contains a detail view as well as a summary of the primary port and secondary port configurations.

Clicking either Primary Port or Secondary Port pulls up the port's status and configuration.

To list all the Interconnections in a project, send a GET request to the /projects/{project_id}/connections endpoint. Note that Dedicated Ports are managed at the organization level, so if there are any Dedicated Ports in your organization, they will also appear in the response.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/projects/{project_id}/connections

To get the details of a Metal Billed Fabric VC, send a GET request to the /connections/{connection_id} endpoint, specifying the UUID in the request path.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}

You can use this information to manage and update the Metal Billed Fabric VC by sending a PUT request to the /connections/{connection_id} endpoint. Specify what you want changed in the body of the request. You can modify the name, description, tags and contact email.

If you want to change the redundancy of the VC, updating redundancy to primary will remove a secondary port, while updating to redundant will add a secondary port.

curl -X PUT \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>" \
"https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}" \
-d '{
    "contact_email": "<string>",
    "description": "<string>",
    "name": "<string>",
    "redundancy": "<string>",
    "tags": [
        "<string>"
    ]
}'

You can also get the port information of your Interconnections.

To get a list of a Metal Billed Fabric VC's ports, send a GET request to the /connections/{connection_id}/ports endpoint.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}/ports

And to get one of the port's details, send a GET request to the /connections/{connection_id}/ports/{id} endpoint.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}/ports/{id}

To attach a VLAN to a Virtual Circuit, click Primary Port, under Virtual Circuits click Manage. From the Manage VLAN panel, select the VLAN you would like to attach.

Note that the VLAN must be in the same project and metro as the Fabric Virtual Connection. Click Update Virtual Circuit to attach the VLAN.

If you have a set of redundant ports, click Secondary Port and follow the same steps to associate a VLAN with the secondary port.

To get your Metal Billed Fabric VC port's Virtual Circuit, send a GET request to the /connections/{connection_id}/ports/{port_id}/virtual-circuits endpoint.

curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{connection_id}/ports/{port_id}/virtual-circuits

And to attach a VLAN to the Virtual Circuit, send a PUT request to the /virtual-circuits/{id} endpoint with the VLAN's "vnid" specified in the body of the request.

curl -X PUT \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>" \
"https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/virtual-circuits/{id}" \
-d '{
    "vnid": "<string>"
}'

From the list of connections on the Interconnections page, click the name of the Fabric Virtual Connection you want to delete.

Click Delete Interconnection to delete the Fabric Virtual Connection permanently.

To delete a Fabric Virtual Connection from the API, send a DELETE request to the /connections/{connection_id} endpoint, specifying the ID of the port in the path.

curl -X DELETE -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' \
https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/connections/{id}

Sending the request will delete the connection permanently. Usage/billing stops when the Metal Billed connection is deleted.