What if you could reduce network costs and keep your network traffic secure more easily? If this sounds attractive, Leaseweb Private Network may be for you.
Running a server, or a cloud compute instance, means also running some level of networking to make sure that the relevant services (or workloads) can communicate with other services. The default option to address services is via their public IP address, or their related domain name address. This typically causes additional billing and security risks, due to network traffic that is being metered and charged while running over a public network, the internet.
How does Private Network work?
Leaseweb Private Network is (so called Layer 2 VLAN based) secure and unmetered network, used for internal network communication between services used by a single Leaseweb customer, like Leaseweb Dedicated Servers, Colocation Racks, Public Cloud instances and more. Initially this works within the same Leaseweb data center and metro area (i.e. two Leaseweb data centers in the same (metro) area within a region).
Through add-on services like Leaseweb Cloud Connect, this Private Network can be extended (Layer 3 Routing based) to customer environments in 3rd party Public Cloud, like an AWS VPC. Supported Public Clouds include AWS, Azure and GCP. It is expected that more interconnect options will be available in the future, including an interconnect between Private Networks from Leaseweb data centers in different regions.
When adding servers and cloud compute instances to the Private Network, the network interfaces connected to the Private Network are default configured in Access Mode (single VLAN, untagged).
With some Leaseweb services, like between Dedicated Servers, customers can however setup multiple internal VLANs over the Private Network by (re)configuring the network interface to the Private Network in Trunk Mode (see also 802.1q) and – while default using the untagged option (a.k.a. native VLAN) – optionally choose to add VLAN ID tags for selected traffic between other Dedicated Servers in Trunk Mode. As a reminder, not all Leaseweb services support VLAN ID tags on the Private Network, so untagged traffic is the default between all services.
What are the benefits of Private Network?
Enabling Leaseweb Private Network enhances security and ensures cost-effective networking between services, while keeping the complexity needed to setup and manage to a minimum.
The traffic is unmetered, which makes it cost-effective for many use cases. Note, a monthly fee per server may be applicable to have Private Network enabled, depending on the server type or service.
The Private Network makes it easier to set up a scalable hybrid cloud, allowing for the seamless integration of dedicated servers, private cloud virtual machines, and public cloud instances, all interconnected through the Private Network.
How is Private Network deployed?
The Leaseweb Private Network is deployed after the first order for the Private Network feature. From then on, all customer services enabled with Private Network will be connected to the same Private Network. Enabling Private Network is self-service and can be selected per server. The default internal IP range on the Private Network can be automatically assigned to the servers over DHCP. Customers can still manually configure other internal IP addresses on the network interfaces connected to the Private Network and optionally disable the built-in DHCP feature.
Leaseweb Private Network in a nutshell
When you run services at Leaseweb, enable a hybrid cloud setup by using Leaseweb Private Network. For free or a fixed fee per month. Unmetered traffic. Easily interconnect multiple servers and services. The Private Network service enables also the use of Leaseweb Cloud connect, which interconnects your Leaseweb environment with your environment at other Public Cloud providers.