SR-MPLS with IPv6 Control Plane (Flex-Algo)


Modern SR-MPLS deployments increasingly use an IPv6-based control plane while transporting EVPN services over a common MPLS data plane. We performed this test to ensure that multi-vendor implementations can support EVPN ELAN services over an IPv6 IS-IS control plane and apply different Flexible Algorithms per service without impacting forwarding continuity. The IS-IS control plane used IPv6 loopback addresses for node identification, and MP-BGP EVPN sessions also used IPv6 next-hop addressing. We validated SR-MPLS with an IPv6 control plane across all devices using IS-IS, and we verified transport of multiple EVPN Ethernet LAN (ELAN) services over the SR-MPLS underlay. On the PE routers, we configured multiple EVPN ELAN services to provide Layer-2 connectivity between attached endpoints. Each service used a distinct EVPN instance and RD to keep service identification independent within the EVPN control plane. We then bound SR Policies with associated color communities to the respective RDs to enable per-service transport steering: one EVPN service was steered using default IS-IS Algorithm 0 (metric-based SPF) via the HPE spine, while a second EVPN service was steered using Flexible Algorithm 128 (delay-based SPF using static delay metrics) via the Arista spine. Based on the combinations in the table below, we tested interoperability. For each EVPN service, we generated any-to-any Ethernet traffic between endpoints connected to different PEs using a traffic generator. Traffic for both services was delivered successfully without packet loss, and forwarding followed the intended spine paths according to the bound SR Policies and selected algorithms. We confirmed that the forwarding of the MPLS labels, EVPN encapsulation, and per service path selection were done correctly, and showed that the EVPN ELAN services can be transported over an SR-MPLS network with an IPv6 control plane while at the same time using different underlay path computations (Algo 0 vs Flex-Algo 128) without affecting the service continuity.

Figure 71

Figure 71: SR-MPLS with IPv6 Control Plane (Flex-Algo)

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