You may have additional charges from your exchange provider or network service provider. Please refer to your provider(s) for fee information.
You can achieve redundancy with Direct Link by connecting to more than one Network Service Provider or Cloud Exchange to SoftLayer.
We recommend NAT or building IPSEC tunnels from your VLAN(s) to the remote location. For NAT SoftLayer will assign out a 172.x.x.x range that you would NAT into that is unique on our side. The IPSEC solution is done with a Vyatta box using IPSec with GRE.
With our standard Direct Link products you will only be able to pass traffic between the datacenters in a selected region and not across the entire Softlayer network. If you are needing to access other datacenters outside of the specified region you will need to order the Global Access add-on. This model is based upon ACLs (access control lists) that are put in place at the time the direct link is ordered. For a list of regions by datacenter and POP please see here.
Overages will be billed monthly when the included alotment of bandwidth is exceeded for outbound bandwidth only and inbound bandwidth is free of charge and not metered. Outbound bandwidth will be billed based on the higher of the two regions where the data crosses. Example, if your direct link is configured in DAL03 and traffic passes between Mexico you will be charged the Mexico bandwidth rate.
In most cases a customer will only require a local bandwidth package and will have no need for their Direct Link to pass traffic across the globe. In almost every Softlayer region the costs of transporting bandwidth will vary and those transit costs can add up quickly. To prevent unexpected costs of data traversing outside of the region we have added the Global Access add-on to keep costs low for the majority of customers and provide the ability for customer's with a global presence to easily reach all regions.
If I am connected to a Direct Link NSP or Direct Link Cloud in a region, such as Dallas, can I access other regions in the US through Direct Link?
Yes, you are able to access outside of your region if you choose the Global Access add-on. If this option is not selected you will be locked into the region for the POP you have selected.
Yes. Direct Link Cloud and Direct Link NSP both provide you access to the SoftLayer private network backbone and all regions if you have the Global Access add-on associated with your Direct Link.
No. Softlayer only offers two options which are either only a single region or all regions with the Global Access add-on.
Yes. SoftLayer does meter all outbound bandwidth on Direct Link Products. Inbound bandwidth is free and unmetered.