Updated 2025-01-15

FastConnect: With a Third-Party Provider

This topic is for customers who want to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect by connecting to a third-party network provider of their choice, and not an Oracle Partner.

For a summary of the different ways to connect, see the connectivity models.

If you are using one of the FastConnect Partners, see FastConnect: With an Oracle Partner. Or, if you want to use FastConnect by colocating with Oracle, see FastConnect: Colocation with Oracle.

For general information about FastConnect, see FastConnect.

Important Points and Responsibilities

  • You can use FastConnect by working with a third-party network service provider or carrier of your choice. The network provider must be capable of connecting to the Oracle routers in one of the FastConnect data center locations (see FastConnect Partners) over single-mode fiber. For more detailed technical requirements, see Hardware and Routing Requirements.
  • Your overall connection with the third-party provider includes two parts, as illustrated in the following diagram:

    • Part 1: Your physical connection to the third-party provider. The rest of this topic assumes you've already set up this part of the overall connection.
    • Part 2: The physical fiber connection (cross-connect) that the third-party provider sets up in the FastConnect location data center on your behalf.

      This image shows the two parts of the overall connection with a third-party provider.
  • To obtain the Letter of Authorization (LOA) for the cross-connect, you must use the Oracle Console to set up a cross-connect or cross-connect group. The resulting LOA from Oracle covers all required details for the provider physical connection to Oracle in the preceding diagram.
  • You must forward the LOA to your third-party provider, who is responsible for working with the data center to set up the physical cross-connect on your behalf.
    Note

    When you don't provide the Oracle LOA with your order to your chosen provider, and instead give your own independent authorization just giving the building address, the details (such as the required panel and port) required for a cross connect aren't included in the price quote and the work order. You might think that placing the order first saves time, but in practice it will most often have to be redone from the beginning, taking far more time than expected.
  • The third-party provider issues a cross-connect order with the data center facility to run fiber optics to complete the connection from the third-party provider's cage to Oracle's patch panel as described in the LOA. Typically the data center colocation staff are the ones who run the fiber optics to complete the connection.
  • Each LOA is valid for only a limited time. If the physical cross-connect is not set up before the LOA's expiration, the LOA is revoked.
  • The third-party provider is responsible for charging you for the entire connection (both parts 1 and 2). Oracle does not set up this cross-connect in the data center, does not pay for it, and does not include it in your FastConnect charges.
  • The LOA specifies an Oracle demarcation point. If your network provider is located at a different demarcation point in the data center cage, they must set up the cross-connect from their demarcation point to the Oracle demarcation point.

Getting Started with FastConnect

Note

In general, this topic assumes that your router supports link aggregation (LAG) and you will set up a cross-connect group (a LAG) with at least one cross-connect in it. The following procedures reflect that. However, if your router doesn't support link aggregation, you can instead set up a single non-LAG cross-connect (with no cross-connect group). The procedures in this topic are still generally applicable. Instead you work only with a single cross-connect and not one or more in a cross-connect group.

Learn and Plan

If you haven't yet, walk through the planning in Before Getting Started: Learn and Plan. Also see FastConnect Redundancy Best Practices and Hardware and Routing Requirements.

You may also need to review information on how to use FastConnect if you do not own a Public ASN or Public IP Address.

The following flow chart shows the overall process of setting up FastConnect.

This chart shows the steps for getting started with FastConnect

Managing Your Connection

Monitoring Your Connection

You can monitor the health, capacity, and performance of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources by using metrics, alarms, and notifications. For more information, see Monitoring and Notifications.

For information about monitoring your connection, see FastConnect Metrics.