INTEGRATOR · EVPN

EVPN across IOS XR and Huawei, with Nexus P routers

Sites 1 and 3 use IOS XR PEs, Site 2 uses Huawei PEs, and a Nexus 7704 and a Nexus 9504 are the P routers. The Nexus switches only swap labels: they run IS-IS and LDP, and know nothing of EVPN or the customers. Sites 1 and 3, the core and the BGP sessions are already configured. Build Site 2 so that it joins the same EVPN.

Integrator track · Cisco IOS XR, Huawei VRP, Cisco Nexus + Cisco switches · 7 objectives

Open in simulator More Integrator labs

Objectives

The simulator ticks each one as soon as the network meets it.

On S2-CE1 and S2-CE2, build Port-channel 1 with LACP: four members, trunking VLANs 10 and 20, and the host port in its VLAN.
On S2-PE1 and S2-PE2, build Eth-Trunk 1 (to CE1) and Eth-Trunk 2 (to CE2) in mode lacp-static, each with one member on card 0/0 and one on 0/1. Add .10 and .20 mode l2 sub-interfaces.
Give each Eth-Trunk its ESI: 0000.1100.0000.0000.0201 for CE1 and 0000.1100.0000.0000.0202 for CE2, the same on both PEs.
Create EVPN instances E10 and E20 in bd-mode with vpn-target 65000: both, the same values the IOS XR PEs use, and bridge domains 10 and 20 bound to them.
Build Vbdif10 and Vbdif20 with the same gateway IPs and MACs as the IOS XR PEs: 192.168.10.1 and 0000-5e00-0110, 192.168.20.1 and 0000-5e00-0120.
Filter the gateway MACs, so no PE learns them from another PE (mac-address blackhole bridge-domain ).
Ping from S2-PC1 to its gateway, to S1-PC1 at another site, and to S2-PC2 in the other subnet.

Start this lab

Before you start

EVPN is a standard, so the route-targets are what join the vendors: names differ (an EVI number on IOS XR, an instance name on Huawei), and automatic values may not match, so write them out. P routers stay out of it: show mpls switching on P1 lists only labels for the PE loopbacks, with no BGP and no customer MAC. Real interworking still needs testing for each pair of releases.

Concept

EVPN all-active: one bundle to two PEs

EVPN joins sites at Layer 2 with BGP routes instead of pseudowires. A CE can bundle links to two PEs, because the PEs share an Ethernet Segment Identifier (ESI): LACP sees one partner, and all links carry traffic. Route type 4 lets the PEs of a segment find each other and elect a designated forwarder (DF) per VLAN, which alone sends flooded frames to the CE. Split horizon stops a frame going back to the segment it came from.

Concept

Anycast gateway: one gateway on every PE

Each PE has a routed interface on the bridge domain (a BVI on IOS XR, a Vbdif on Huawei), and all of them use the same IP and MAC. A host always reaches a gateway at its own site, and keeps the same gateway if it moves. But the same MAC on every PE must not travel as an EVPN route: a PE would then see its own gateway MAC behind another PE, as if it had moved.