Asymmetric IRB with VLAN-Based Interface

In this section, we focus on asymmetric IRB (Integrated Routing and Bridging) solutions. Asymmetric IRB has the same use case as symmetric IRB: interconnect the L2 and L3 for complex network conditions. It's just that the working mode is different. In asymmetric IRB, the lookup operations differ between the ingress and egress Provider Edge (PE) devices. The ingress PE executes three lookups: first, a MAC lookup, followed by an IP lookup, and then another MAC lookup. In contrast, the egress PE performs just a single MAC lookup.
For our tests, we tested one type of service interface: VLAN-based. DUTs had multiple VLANs configured. EANTC conducted a full-mesh unicast traffic simultaneously to verify both routing and bridging functions with Spirent TestCenter, without performing any switchover. We completed two iterations, as some vendors only support single-homing this year.