Sunday 25 April 2021

SD-WAN Part V: Hub and Spoke with Restrected Spoke Sites

 

 

Introduction

 

Cisco Viptela SD-WAN solution builds a full-mesh topology between vEdge devices by default when there are no Control Policies implemented. This means that vEdges tries to build an IPSec/GRE tunnel to every reachable TLOC public IP addresses no matter which site or color (transport network) TLOCs belong to. We have already change the default behavior by using the restrict option (chapter 2) under tunnel interfaces. In this way, tunnels are only established between TLOCs belonging to the same color. In this chapter, we are going to create a Hub and Spoke topology by implementing a Control Policy where the vSmart advertises TLOC/OMP routes from site 30 to sites 10 and 20 and TLOC/OMP routes from sites 10 and 20 to site 30. vSmart doesn’t advertise TLOC/OMP routes between sites 10 and 20. Site 10 and 20 will be our Branch/Remote sites and site 30 will be the Hub/DataCenter site.

 

Figure 5-1 recaps the operation of the Overlay Management Protocol (OMP). vEdge1 in site 10 advertises TLOC route advertisement to vSmart where it describes its System Id, transport color, and encapsulation method as well as Public/Private IP and restricts attributes (among several other attributes). vSmart forwards TLOC routes received from vEdge1 to both vEdge2 (site 20) and vEdge3 (site 30). vEdge1 also advertises OMP routes where it describes the reachability information about its local subnet 172.16.10.0/24 bound to VPN10.

Figure 5-1: TLOC Route advertisement.

 

Wednesday 14 April 2021

SD-WAN Part IV: MPLS Network with IS-IS Segment Routing as SD-WAN Transport

 

Introduction

 

In order to have IP connectivity between hosts A and B over the underlay transport network, we need to build a tunnel (IPSec or GRE) between the Public  IP addresses of vEdge devices (TLOC Routes). Then we also need VPN-specific subnet routing information (OMP Routes) to be able to route traffic over the tunnel. This chapter discusses the role and operation of various protocols involved in Control Plane operations when an MPLS Transport network is used as an Underlay Network for SD-WAN solution. The first section introduces the Segment Routing solution for building a Label Switch Path (LSP) between PE routers over the MPLS backbone by using the IS-IS routing protocol for both routing and label distribution. The second section explains how to build L3VPN between vEdge Public IP addresses over the LSP. Figure 4-1 shows the high-level routing model used in this chapter.



Figure 4-1: Control Plane Model.

Friday 9 April 2021

Cisco SD-WAN - Part III: Overlay Management Protocol

 

Introduction

 

This chapter introduces the operation of the Overlay Management Protocol (OMP). It starts by introducing TLOC Routes which are used for establishing tunnels between vEdges. Next, it explains OMP Routes which in turn are used for advertising client VPN-specific networks reachability information. I am also going to show the data plane encapsulation when data is sent between the hosts in site 10 and site 30. The purpose of the data plane section is to show how the label attribute advertised within OMP routing advertisements is used to identify customer VPN. In order to see inside captured packets, I am using GRE tunnels instead of IPSec. Figure 3-1 illustrates the example topology used in this chapter. The customer VPN 10 is used on both sites. Site 10 subnet is 172.16.10.0/24 and site 30 subnet is 172.16.30.0/24. Interface ge0/­0 in both vEdges is connected to the Public-Internet, and interface ge0/1 is the connected to MPLS transport network where the customer has its dedicated MPLS VPN.



Figure 3-1: SD-WAN Example Topology.