Terminology List#

Terminology#
Availability Zone#

An availability zone refers to a specific logical grouping of physical equipment within the ServiceFabric® network. To provide fault tolerant operations, each availability zone’s equipment is physically isolated from all other zones’ equipment in terms of power, networking, and connectivity; thus, providing the ability to avoid a single point of failure. The ServiceFabric® network provides two availability zones per data center location and are represented as Blue / Red or A / B options depending upon the data center.

Note: To maintain consistency during configuration and ensure a fault tolerant network, you should devise and maintain a logical association between the two availability zone identification methods (e.g., Blue & A should be considered equivalent and Red & B should be considered equivalent).

Autonomous System (AS)#

The Internet is a network of networks, and autonomous systems are the big networks that comprise the Internet. More specifically, an autonomous system is a large network or group of networks operated by a single management organization utilizing a unified routing policy.

Autonomous System Number (ASN)#

Used primarily by Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for routing purposes, this is an IANA*- assigned number used to uniquely identify a specific autonomous system. In ServiceFabric®, this is a numeric field (2 – 4294967294, inclusive) with the following exceptions:

Azure Reserved ASNs#
  • 8074
  • 8075
  • 12076
  • 65515 - 65520 (inclusive)
IANA Reserved ASNs#
  • 23456
  • 64496 - 64511 (inclusive)
  • 65535 - 65551 (inclusive)
Amazon Web Service (AWS)#

An Amazon subsidiary that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)#

The routing protocol used by the Internet to interconnect multiple independent networks (i.e., autonomous systems) that comprise the Internet.

CIDR Address#

CIDR addresses are made up of two sets of numbers: a prefix, which is the numerical representation of the network address (similar to what would be seen in a normal IP address) and a suffix, which declares the total number of bits in the entire address (e.g., 10.0.0.1/30).

Cloud Service Provider (CSP)#

A third-party company offering a cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services.

Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)#

Network equipment, such as a switch or a router, that resides on your property. In this document, CPE is used to distinguish network equipment that belongs to or is under the control of the customer versus the network provider, regardless of the equipment’s physical location.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)#

Software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

Dashboard (Services)#

The dashboard is the landing page when you log in to the portal. This page is primarily a table summary of all configured services, including their status, along with easy access to Service Builder (on the main screen and on the left navigation pane), which enables you to create new service elements and services.

Gbps (Gigabits per Second)#

A measurement (1 billion bits per second) of transmission speed, typically on a physical connection.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)#

A standards organization that has responsibility for global IP address allocation and autonomous system number (ASN) allocation.

Letter of Authorization (LOA)#

A legally binding document, like a contract, that outlines the details of an arrangement in a less formal and more succinct manner. This is used as a way for you to authorize a connection to ServiceFabric®.

An IEEE standard (i.e., 802.3ad) for using multiple transmission paths between servers, switches, and routers. LAGs increase the bandwidth, increase port flexibility, and provide link redundancy between two devices. The two primary types of LAGs are static (also known as manual) and dynamic.

Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) is part of the IEEE specification (802.3az) that enables several physical ports to be dynamically bundled together to form a single logical channel (LAG).

Mbps (Megabits per Second)#

A measurement (1 million bits per second) of transmission speed, typically on a physical connection.

The left navigation panel provides quick and easy access to Service Builder, the dashboard, and the inventory page, which provides you with the ability to create and manage their service elements.

Network Address Translation (NAT)#

A methodology that enables network and service providers to utilize public IP addresses for your connections by translating and mapping your private IP addresses to public IP addresses. This capability maintains the privacy and independence of your IP addresses as their data transits 3rd party networks and eliminates any issues should you inadvertently be using identical private IP addresses.

Port (Local / Remote)#

A port is a physical interface, such as an RJ45 ethernet connection, on a network device, such as a switch, which acts as a gateway between your network device and the ServiceFabric® network.

Local Port#

A ServiceFabric® network port residing within a Digital Realty data center.

Remote Port#

A ServiceFabric® network port residing outside of a Digital Realty data center, such as within a 3rd party data center.

Port Group#

A port group is a logical collection of multiple physical ports, which are bundled together using link aggregation (802.3ad) and treated as a single port from an operational perspective. Also known as a link aggregation group (LAG), a port group is comprised of multiple transmission paths or lines (i.e., ethernet connections) between the same network devices (e.g., servers, switches, routers). Port groups provide increased bandwidth capacity and resilience for a given connection because if one line or port fails, the remaining lines in the port group continue to be available and provide connectivity. ServiceFabric® implements port groups using standards- based link aggregation (LAG)and manages dynamic port groups via the link aggregation control protocol (LACP).

Service (Service Combination)#

A service combination is comprised of at least two endpoints (i.e., ports or port groups) with a layer 2 (VLAN-based) or layer 3 (IP-based) connection between them.

Service Builder#

Service Builder is an element-focused interface that enables you to manually create and manage service elements and establish connections to global cloud and network providers, thus providing access to a wide range of seamless, on-demand services.

The starting point is the creation of connection points (i.e., ports and port groups) your equipment connects to ServiceFabric®.

Service Elements#

A service element is a component of a service or service combination, such as a port, port group, layer 2 link, layer 3 connection or virtual router.

Salesforce Dot Com (SFDC)#

An American cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management (CRM)* software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN)#

A logical subgroup within a network that is managed by software rather than being based upon physical connection points. A VLAN removes the physical constraint, hence the use of the term virtual, and allows geographically dispersed network devices to be associated with the same VLAN. This is often accomplished by tagging the traffic (i.e., 802.1q) to identify membership in a particular VLAN.

Virtual Router (VR)#

A router implemented in software running on a server rather than a stand-alone, dedicated device.

Forms Fields#
Name#

This is a required field designed to provide a straightforward way to reference services and enable you to create meaningful references for their services. This field can be 100 characters long comprised of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, symbols, and spaces.

Description#

This is an optional field designed to enable you to create meaningful descriptions for their services. This field can be 250 characters long comprised of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, symbols, and spaces.

Virtual Router#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific virtual router by selecting from a list of existing virtual routers.

Gateway Type#

This is a required field that enables you to specify the type of resource they are connecting to with their virtual router from a list of existing resources.

Gateway Virtual Router#

This is a required field, determined by what was selected in Gateway Type field above, that enables you to specify a specific virtual router by selecting from a list of existing virtual routers.

Location#

This is a required field that enables you to select the ServiceFabric® facility where the service will be created. This location must be a Digital Realty facility, or a 3rd party facility operated by one of Digital Realty’s ServiceFabric® partners where you maintain network equipment.

Port#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific port or port group by selecting from a list of defined ports and port groups.

A-Side VLAN#

This is a required field that enables you to either specify a specific VLAN ID (between 2 – 4094 inclusive) or check the box to accept a randomly generated VLAN ID, which will be auto- assigned by the network provider.

Attachment Type – Port#

Selecting port as the attachment type is required for links.

Port Attachment#

This is a required field representing the Z-Side connection that enables you to specify a specific port or port group by selecting from a list of defined ports and port groups.

Z-side VLAN#

This is a required field that enables you to either specify a specific VLAN ID (between 2 – 4094 inclusive) or check the box to accept a randomly generated VLAN ID, which will be auto- assigned by the network provider.

Attachment Type – Amazon AWS*#

This is a required field that enables you to select a cloud provider as the attachment type. Please note that the process for attaching to Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or Oracle Cloud are all like each other, whereas attaching to Amazon AWS is different.

Account ID (AWS only)#

This is a required field that enables you to provide an account ID, which is used when connecting to the service.

Cloud Port Attachment#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific service attachment location from a list of service-enabled attachment sites.

Availability Zone*#

This is an optional field that enables you to specify that the port being created must belong to a specific logical grouping of physical equipment within the ServiceFabric® network to establish a fault tolerant configuration.

Port Count#

This is a required field that enables you to specify the number of ports that will comprise the port group. (Note, you must specify a minimum of one port, and all ports within the port group will necessarily be of the same port speed).

Speed#

This is a required field that enables you to specify the port speed as a 10 Gbps* or 100 Gbps connection (Note, port speed options are dependent upon the selected location and availability zone).

Cost#

This is a read only field that provides you with the monthly cost for the defined service.

BGP Configurations#
Virtual Router IP Address#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific CIDR* address (in the form of a.b.c.d/30, such as 10.0.0.1/30). This will be the IP address of the virtual router specified above.

Virtual Router ASN#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific ASN for the virtual router specified above. It is recommended that you check the box to default to the ASN of the virtual router, which will handle most use cases. You may also specify a specific ASN (between 2 – 4294967294, inclusive, with some reserved exceptions documented in the appendix).

Gateway IP Address#

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific CIDR address (in the form of a.b.c.d/30, such as 10.0.0.2/30). This will be the IP address of the gateway virtual router specified above Gateway ASN

This is a required field that enables you to specify a specific ASN for the gateway virtual router specified above. It is recommended that you check the box to default to the ASN of the gateway virtual router, which will handle the vast majority of use cases. You may also specify a specific ASN (between 2- 4294967294, inclusive, with some reserved exceptions documented in the appendix) which will override the default value; however, it is not recommended and should only be used in specific scenarios.

Password#

This is an optional field that enables you to create a BGP password for their gateway virtual router. However, this field may be required depending upon the option selected in Gateway Type field above (e.g., Azure requires this password).