Complete Guide: VXLAN-BGP-EVPN in Enterprise Network

With the development of the Internet, the number and scale of data centers have shown an explosive growth trend. The data center business is increasing, and user demands are constantly improving. The following problem is that the functions of the data center are becoming more and more complex, and the operation and maintenance management are becoming more and more difficult. The emergence of VXLAN-BGP-EVPN brings infinite possibilities to enterprise networks.

What is VXLAN-BGP-EVPN?

Firstly, we should clarify that VXLAN-BGP-EVPN refers to a VXLAN communication practice based on BGP EVPN. VXLAN-BGP-EVPN can automatically discover and establish tunnels, enabling unlimited and seamless migration of virtual machines in the data center without user perception.

• VXLAN is a standard IP tunneling protocol for extending VLANs in a network. It connects VLANs from one end of the network to the other without tunneling, enabling multi-tenancy and scaling capabilities not available in traditional 802.1q/VLAN networks.

• BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is the main protocol supporting the Internet and is used to synchronize routing information between network devices.

• EVPN is an extension of BGP, which mainly provides multi-path forwarding through the multi-homing model. Its redundancy allows a device to connect to two or more upstream devices and use all links for traffic forwarding.

Benefits of VXLAN-BGP-EVPN

EVPN and VXLAN work together to enable scalable and agile campus and data center networks. As a routing protocol that is used to connect independent systems on the Internet, BGP has the main function of controlling the propagation of routers. VXLAN-BGP-EVPN, applied to enterprise switches, greatly improves the performance of network switches and provides stronger network deployment for data centers. The S5850 enterprise switch combined with the VXLAN-BGP-EVPN feature can achieve the following advantages:

• Network configuration simplification: Links can automatically discover VTEP, automatically establish VXLAN tunnels and associate with VXLAN through MP-BGP, which eliminates the need for manual configuration by users and reduces the difficulty of network deployment.

• Control plane and data plane separation: The control plane is responsible for publishing routing information, and the data plane is responsible for forwarding packets. It is clear division of labor and easy to manage.

• Bandwidth utilization improvement: When the same site is connected to the VXLAN network through multiple VTEPs, multiple paths connected to the site can still carry traffic forwarding, thereby improving network bandwidth utilization.

• Supporting symmetric IRB (Integrated Bridging and Routing): MP-BGP can simultaneously advertise Layer 2 MAC addresses and Layer 3 routing information. In this way, VTEP can implement not only Layer 2 forwarding but also Layer 3 routing.

VXLAN-BGP-EVPN Support on FS S5850 Series Switches

FS S5850 series enterprise switches (license required) can leverage BGP EVPN to inherit support for VPN multi-tenancy using virtual routing and forwarding. They enable multiple tenants to share the IP transit network while having their separate VPNs in the VXLAN overlay network.

In an VXLAN-BGP-EVPN overlay network, VXLAN defines Layer 2 domains and enforces Layer 2 segmentation, and does not allow Layer 2 traffic to touch VNI boundaries. Likewise, Layer 3 segmentation of VXLAN leverages Layer 3 VRF technology and isolates routing between tenants. This way, each tenant will have its VRF routing instance. The IP subnet of a specific tenant's VNI is in the same Layer 3 VRF instance that separates the Layer 3 routing domain from other tenants.

Built-in multi-tenancy support is an advantage of the S5850 series enterprise switches compared to multicast-based "flood and learns" VXLAN and other Layer 2 extension technologies that do not have multi-tenancy capabilities. It makes VXLAN technology more suitable for cloud networks deployed using a multi-tenant model.

Explore FS S5850 Switches VXLAN-BGP-EVPN Application

For enterprises, data centers are deployed across campus networks, WANs, and the Internet. When the VXLAN-BGP-EVPN fabric is deployed in a data center, connectivity to these networks outside the VXLAN fabric would be required. In the spine-and-leaf architecture, the S5850 series switches have data center features and can be used as leaf switches to connect to external routing devices to achieve overall network construction. At this point, while the internal MP-BGP EVPN exchanges EVPN routes with these VTEPs, normal IPv4 or IPv6 unicast routing can be run in the tenant RRF instance.

FS S5850 Switches with VXLAN-BGP-EVPN Recommendation

FS S5850 series switches cooperate with VXLAN-BGP-EVPN to simplify your network configuration, improve network bandwidth efficiency, and introduce some new logical structures through symmetric IRB to achieve scalability of routing and bridging. The following are some recommended S5850 series switches.

Conclusion

The seamless integration of EVPN technology and SDN architecture has set off a new upsurge in SDN network construction, making large-scale data center networks gradually move from traditional architecture to SDN architecture. Based on the VXLAN-BGP-EVPN protocol features, the FS S5850 series switches can be widely used in small and medium-sized data centers to achieve network expansion.