Before you order, decide which product you need — Direct or Flex — and gather what your cloud requires from you. Both are ordered through the same TCx Portal journey and terminate against the same cloud connection; they differ in how your sites reach the backbone: Direct over the private network (MPLS), Flex over the internet with an encrypted tunnel on a VNF.
Choosing your product: Multi Cloud Connect Direct or Multi Cloud Connect Flex
The two service models terminate against the same cloud connection and share the same portal flow. What differs is how your traffic reaches the Tata Communications backbone.
Multi Cloud Connect Direct carries traffic on Tata Communications' private backbone from the customer site all the way to the cloud. Choose Direct when sites are already on — or can join — the MPLS network and you want a fully private, SLA-backed path. Tata Communications provides the peering addresses, and BGP terminates on the Tata Communications MPLS PE router.
Multi Cloud Connect Flex is for sites that reach the backbone over the internet. An encrypted IPsec tunnel runs from each site to a Tata Communications Service Gateway, and traffic then joins the MPLS path to the cloud. Flex can also include an in-path Virtual Network Function (VNF) between the Tata CommunicationsPoP and the cloud interconnect, which adds routing, firewalling (FWaaS), and SD-WAN integration when required. On Flex, the customer defines the BGP addressing on their end.
The decision in one line: Direct = a private (MPLS) first mile; Flex = an internet first mile secured with IPsec, with an optional in-path VNF for firewall or SD-WAN. The two are not mutually exclusive — many enterprises run Direct for core MPLS sites and Flex for internet-connected branches.
What to obtain from your cloud
Each cloud service provider issues one identifier that Tata Communications needs to provision the Cloud VC. Create it in your cloud console first (the multi-screen steps are on the per-cloud page and order creation page as well), then enter it during ordering.
Cloud-side prerequisite
|
Cloud provider |
What to obtain first |
Where it is created |
|
AWS |
Nothing before ordering (you accept the hosted connection after) |
AWS Direct Connect console |
|
Microsoft Azure |
ExpressRoute service key |
Create an ExpressRoute circuit (Provider: Tata Communications) |
|
Google Cloud |
Pairing key |
Create a VLAN attachment under Partner Interconnect |
|
Oracle Cloud (OCI) |
FastConnect virtual-circuit OCID |
Create a FastConnect virtual circuit |
|
IBM Cloud |
IBM account ID |
Your IBM Cloud account |
For Flex, also have ready: your VNF’s AS number, and the interface IP / neighbour IP (/30) for BGP — because BGP terminates on your VNF.
Also worth having
Your TCx Portal account and the legal entity to contract under (see Account Setup), the on-ramp metro and target cloud region, your CPE’s BGP ASN and the prefixes you will advertise, and your chosen underlay (see Underlay Options).