What is the difference between Direct Link Dedicated and Direct Link Connect?

Dedicated gives you a physical port (1 Gbps, 10 Gbps) inside an IBM Cloud-affiliated colocation facility, terminated entirely on your equipment. Connect is a virtual connection through a partner's existing physical infrastructure (Equinix, Megaport, etc.) — faster to provision, lower minimum bandwidth, but with the partner in the path. Dedicated is right for high-volume long-term connections; Connect is right for getting started or for branch sites.

How does BGP peering work with Direct Link?

Both ends establish an eBGP session over the Direct Link circuit. You provide your AS number and IBM provides theirs. Each side advertises its routes (your on-prem prefixes, IBM's VPC CIDRs) and learns the other's. Route filters at both ends control which routes propagate. Without BGP, the link is provisioned but no traffic flows.

IBM Direct Link Config Builder

NetworkingIBM Cloud

Build Direct Link Dedicated and Connect configurations with BGP peering, virtual connections, and route filters.

Last verified: May 2026

IBM Cloud Direct Link Configuration

Build Direct Link Dedicated and Connect configurations with BGP peering, virtual connections, route filters, and redundancy.

Required Fields

nametypespeedlocationbgpAsn

{
  "name": "dc-ashburn-direct-link",
  "type": "dedicated",
  "speed": "10Gbps",
  "location": "dal10",
  "resourceGroup": "network-resources",
  "crossConnectRouter": "xcr01.dal10",
  "bgpAsn": 64999,
  "bgpBaseCidr": "169.254.0.0/16",
  "bgpCerCidr": "10.254.30.76/30",
  "bgpIbmCidr": "10.254.30.77/30",
  "global": true,
  "metered": false,
  "virtualConnections": [
    {
      "name": "prod-vpc-connection",
      "type": "vpc",
      "networkId": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south:a/acct-id::vpc:vpc-prod-id",
      "prefixFilters": [
        { "action": "permit", "prefix": "10.240.0.0/16", "le": 24 },
        { "action": "deny", "prefix": "0.0.0.0/0" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "classic-infra-connection",
      "type": "classic"
    }
  ],
  "exportRouteFilters": [
    { "action": "permit", "prefix": "10.240.0.0/16", "le": 24 }
  ],
  "importRouteFilters": [
    { "action": "permit", "prefix": "172.16.0.0/12", "le": 24 },
    { "action": "deny", "prefix": "0.0.0.0/0" }
  ],
  "redundancy": {
    "enabled": true,
    "secondLocation": "dal12",
    "bidirectionalForwardingDetection": true
  }
}

Generated Output

Output will appear here...

About This Tool

IBM Cloud Direct Link is the dedicated private connection between your on-premise data center (or another cloud) and IBM Cloud. The Direct Link Config Builder produces configurations for Dedicated (your own physical port) or Connect (shared port via a colocation partner) variants, including BGP peering parameters, virtual connections per VPC, and route filters. Output is Terraform-ready and includes the BGP configuration your on-prem router will need.

Real-World Scenario

Your company is moving a high-volume internal analytics workload from on-prem to IBM Cloud, requiring 5 Gbps of stable bandwidth. You configure two Direct Link Dedicated 10 Gbps ports in different IBM Cloud PoPs, with BGP peering and equal-cost multi-path routing. The active-active link survives a single circuit failure with no observable impact; total cost is lower than over-the-internet VPN once the consistent bandwidth requirement is factored in.

When to Use This Tool

•Designing a new Direct Link connection between an on-premise data center and an IBM Cloud VPC for low-latency private connectivity.
•Adding a second virtual connection to an existing Direct Link to reach a different VPC without provisioning a second physical link.
•Configuring route filters that prevent on-premise routes from leaking into IBM Cloud (or vice versa) when full-mesh BGP is not desired.
•Migrating from a Direct Link Connect (shared) configuration to a Direct Link Dedicated (private port) as bandwidth needs grow.

Pro Tips

TIP

Always configure redundant Direct Link circuits to different IBM Cloud points-of-presence. A single Direct Link is a single point of failure for hybrid connectivity, and the cost-of-outage during a circuit problem is dramatic.

TIP

Set BGP route filters explicitly. Default-route advertisement from on-prem into IBM Cloud is a common foot-gun — it makes IBM Cloud workloads route over the Direct Link for general internet traffic instead of out the IBM Cloud egress, often making latency and cost worse.

How It Works Under the Hood

The builder collects connection type (Dedicated or Connect), location, bandwidth, BGP parameters (customer AS, IBM AS, BGP MD5 password), and a list of virtual connections (each pointing to a VPC with route filters and prefixes to advertise). Output is `ibm_dl_gateway` and `ibm_dl_virtual_connection` Terraform resources, plus the BGP neighbor configuration your network team can apply on the on-prem router.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Direct Link Dedicated and Direct Link Connect?: Dedicated gives you a physical port (1 Gbps, 10 Gbps) inside an IBM Cloud-affiliated colocation facility, terminated entirely on your equipment. Connect is a virtual connection through a partner's existing physical infrastructure (Equinix, Megaport, etc.) — faster to provision, lower minimum bandwidth, but with the partner in the path. Dedicated is right for high-volume long-term connections; Connect is right for getting started or for branch sites.
How does BGP peering work with Direct Link?: Both ends establish an eBGP session over the Direct Link circuit. You provide your AS number and IBM provides theirs. Each side advertises its routes (your on-prem prefixes, IBM's VPC CIDRs) and learns the other's. Route filters at both ends control which routes propagate. Without BGP, the link is provisioned but no traffic flows.

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