How to Solve for Virtual Connection Migration

There are many reasons for upping your network capacity. For example, increases in remote user traffic, such as experienced during the global pandemic, or an increase in streaming video binge watching that generates high-capacity, latency-sensitive workloads. Or maybe your objective is to reduce your network bandwidth capacity during a development project that is just coming to an end. Whatever the compelling network optimization reason is, migrating to a different virtual connection speed doesn’t have to be a big deal.

Equinix Fabric™ virtual connection migration explained

First, here’s what we mean by virtual connection (VC) migration. A VC is the primary object connecting two points, such as a connection between a cloud and a network service provider, a cloud and a customer or two different ports with the same customer. VC migrations are typically used when you want to make a Layer 2 upgrade to your physical port capacity for greater performance and scalability.

Using Equinix’s VC Migration Service, you can quickly migrate your virtual connections from an existing 1 Gbps port to a new 10 Gbps port (or back again). This enables you to upgrade/downgrade your physical port bandwidth on existing VCs without having to manually recreate them on a new physical circuit.

Before Virtual Connection Migration

After Virtual Connection Migration

How to start the migration process

First, you might want to perform a Smart Hands™ virtual connection audit. Smart Hands is an around-the-clock, on-site, operational support service for remote management, installation and troubleshooting of your data center equipment. Our Smart Hands experts will conduct a VC audit to help you assess your bandwidth capacity requirements and check your existing port configuration. See example listing of port connections below:

The results of the audit will help you decide where you need to increase or decrease your VC bandwidth capacity on Equinix Fabric.

It will then be up to the Equinix Network Operations Center (NOC)/Service Management Center (SMC) teams to perform your Equinix Fabric VC migrations. A Customer Project Manager (CPM) will help you coordinate with the Equinix NOC/SMC teams on provisioning your new Equinix Fabric ports, schedule your VC migration and keep you apprised on the status. With a single point of contact, you will get accurate and timely updates from your CPM and a smooth migration.

The VC migration process will:

• Provision a new Equinix Fabric port in the same metro and under the same account as an existing port.
• Configure the new and old port with the same port configuration settings—encapsulation and tag protocol identifier (TPID).

When we migrate a VC from an existing port to a new port, the VC bandwidth remains the same and the new physical port speed can remain the same or be higher or lower than the existing port. Note that VC migration is only available for Layer 2 services.

Currently, the NOC/SMC teams perform VC migration, however, we are planning to extend this capability to customers in future release within the next year. Customers will then be able to perform VC migration from the Equinix Fabric Portal.

Best practices for VC migration

It is always a good idea to know where you might need more or less bandwidth to best support your users and their changing requirements. People change locations or workloads fluctuate and unexpected changes are bound to happen. Keeping on top of how much bandwidth your company is using is an efficient way to manage your network performance, scalability and costs.

Learn more by reading about Equinix Fabric virtual connections or contacting your local Equinix Customer Project Manager.