Building Data Centers with VXLAN BGP EVPN: A Cisco NX-OS Perspective

Building Data Centers with VXLAN BGP EVPN: A Cisco NX-OS Perspective

by Lukas Krattiger, Shyam Kapadia, David Jansen
Released March 2017
Publisher(s): Cisco Press
ISBN: 9780134514895

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

The complete guide to building and managing next-generation data center network fabrics with VXLAN and BGP EVPN

This is the only comprehensive guide and deployment reference for building flexible data center network fabrics with VXLAN and BGP EVPN technologies. Writing for experienced network professionals, three leading Cisco experts address everything from standards and protocols to functions, configurations, and operations.

The authors first explain why and how data center fabrics are evolving, and introduce Cisco’s fabric journey. Next, they review key switch roles, essential data center network fabric terminology, and core concepts such as network attributes, control plane details, and the associated data plane encapsulation.

Building on this foundation, they provide a deep dive into fabric semantics, efficient creation and addressing of the underlay, multi-tenancy, control and data plane interaction, forwarding flows, external interconnectivity, and service appliance deployments. You’ll find detailed tutorials, descriptions, and packet flows that can easily be adapted to accommodate customized deployments. This guide concludes with a full section on fabric management, introducing multiple opportunities to simplify, automate, and orchestrate data center network fabrics.

  • Learn how changing data center requirements have driven the evolution to overlays, evolved control planes, and VXLAN BGP EVPN spine-leaf fabrics

  • Discover why VXLAN BGP EVPN fabrics are so scalable, resilient, and elastic

  • Implement enhanced unicast and multicast forwarding of tenant traffic over the VXLAN BGP EVPN fabric

  • Build fabric underlays to efficiently transport uni- and multi-destination traffic

  • Connect the fabric externally via Layer 3 (VRF-Lite, LISP, MPLS L3VPN) and Layer 2 (VPC)

  • Choose your most appropriate Multi-POD, multifabric, and Data Center Interconnect (DCI) options

  • Integrate Layer 4-7 services into the fabric, including load balancers and firewalls

  • Manage fabrics with POAP-based day-0 provisioning, incremental day 0.5 configuration, overlay day-1 configuration, or day-2 operations

    •

    Table of contents

    1. About This E-Book
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. About the Authors
    5. About the Technical Reviewers
    6. Dedications
    7. Acknowledgments
    8. Contents at a Glance
    9. Contents
    10. Introduction
    11. Chapter 1 Introduction to Programmable Fabric
      1. Today’s Data Center Challenges and Requirements
      2. The Data Center Fabric Journey
      3. Cisco Open Programmable Fabric
        1. Fabric-Related Terminology
      4. Data Center Network Fabric Properties
        1. Server or Endpoint Connectivity Options
      5. Summary
      6. References
    12. Chapter 2 VXLAN BGP EVPN Basics
      1. Overlays
      2. Introduction to VXLAN
        1. VXLAN Flood and Learn (F&L)
      3. Introduction to BGP EVPN with VXLAN
        1. MP-BGP Features and Common Practices
        2. IETF Standards and RFCs
        3. Host and Subnet Route Distribution
        4. Host Deletion and Move Events
      4. Summary
      5. References
    13. Chapter 3 VXLAN/EVPN Forwarding Characteristics
      1. Multidestination Traffic
        1. Leveraging Multicast Replication in the Underlying Network
        2. Using Ingress Replication
      2. VXLAN BGP EVPN Enhancements
        1. ARP Suppression
        2. Distributed IP Anycast Gateway
        3. Integrated Route and Bridge (IRB)
        4. Endpoint Mobility
        5. Virtual PortChannel (vPC) in VXLAN BGP EVPN
        6. DHCP
      3. Summary
      4. References
    14. Chapter 4 The Underlay
      1. Underlay Considerations
        1. MTU Considerations
        2. IP Addressing
      2. IP Unicast Routing
        1. OSPF as an Underlay
        2. IS-IS as an Underlay
        3. BGP as an Underlay
        4. IP Unicast Routing Summary
      3. Multidestination Traffic
        1. Unicast Mode
        2. Multicast Mode
          1. PIM Any Source Multicast (ASM)
          2. BiDirectional PIM (PIM BiDir)
      4. Summary
      5. References
    15. Chapter 5 Multitenancy
      1. Bridge Domains
      2. VLANs in VXLAN
      3. Layer 2 Multitenancy: Mode of Operation
        1. VLAN-Oriented Mode
        2. BD-Oriented Mode
      4. VRF in VXLAN BGP EVPN
      5. Layer 3 Multitenancy: Mode of Operation
      6. Summary
      7. References
    16. Chapter 6 Unicast Forwarding
      1. Intra-Subnet Unicast Forwarding (Bridging)
      2. Non-IP Forwarding (Bridging)
      3. Inter-Subnet Unicast Forwarding (Routing)
        1. Routed Traffic to Silent Endpoints
      4. Forwarding with Dual-Homed Endpoint
      5. IPv6
      6. Summary
    17. Chapter 7 Multicast Forwarding
      1. Layer 2 Multicast Forwarding
        1. IGMP in VXLAN BGP EVPN Networks
        2. Layer 2 Multicast Forwarding in vPC
      2. Layer 3 Multicast Forwarding
      3. Summary
      4. References
    18. Chapter 8 External Connectivity
      1. External Connectivity Placement
        1. External Layer 3 Connectivity
          1. U-Shaped and Full-Mesh Models
          2. VRF Lite/Inter-AS Option A
          3. LISP
          4. MPLS Layer 3 VPN (L3VPN)
        2. External Layer 2 Connectivity
      2. Classic Ethernet and vPC
      3. Extranet and Shared Services
        1. Local/Distributed VRF Route Leaking
        2. Downstream VNI Assignment
      4. Summary
      5. Reference
    19. Chapter 9 Multi-pod, Multifabric, and Data Center Interconnect (DCI)
      1. Contrasting OTV and VXLAN
      2. Multi-pod
        1. Interconnection at the Spine Layer
        2. Interconnection at the Leaf Layer
      3. Multifabric
      4. Inter-pod/Interfabric
        1. Interfabric Option 1: Multi-pod
        2. Interfabric Option 2: Multifabric
        3. Interfabric Option 3 (Multisite for Layer 3)
        4. Interfabric Option 4 (Multisite for Layer 2)
      5. Summary
      6. References
    20. Chapter 10 Layer 4–7 Services Integration
      1. Firewalls in a VXLAN BGP EVPN Network
        1. Routing Mode
        2. Bridging Mode
        3. Firewall Redundancy with Static Routing
          1. Static Route Tracking at a Service Leaf
          2. Static Routing at a Remote Leaf
      2. Physical Connectivity
      3. Inter-Tenant/Tenant-Edge Firewall
        1. Services-Edge Design
        2. Intra-Tenant Firewalls
        3. Mixing Intra-Tenant and Inter-Tenant Firewalls
      4. Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Load Balancer in a VXLAN BGP EVPN Network
        1. One-Armed Source-NAT
          1. Direct VIP Subnet Approach
          2. Indirect VIP Subnet Approach
          3. Return Traffic
        2. Service Chaining: Firewall and Load Balancer
      5. Summary
      6. References
    21. Chapter 11 Introduction to Fabric Management
      1. Day-0 Operations: Automatic Fabric Bring-Up
        1. In-Band Versus Out-of-Band POAP
        2. Other Day-0 Considerations
      2. Day-0.5 Operations: Incremental Changes
      3. Day-1 Operations: Overlay Services Management
      4. Virtual Topology System (VTS)
      5. Nexus Fabric Manager (NFM)
      6. Data Center Network Manager (DCNM)
        1. Compute Integration
      7. Day-2 Operations: Monitoring and Visibility
        1. VXLAN OAM (NGOAM)
      8. Summary
      9. References
    22. Appendix A VXLAN BGP EVPN Implementation Options
      1. EVPN Layer 2 Services
      2. EVPN IP-VRF to IP-VRF Model
      3. References
    23. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Building Data Centers with VXLAN BGP EVPN: A Cisco NX-OS Perspective
    • Author(s): Lukas Krattiger, Shyam Kapadia, David Jansen
    • Release date: March 2017
    • Publisher(s): Cisco Press
    • ISBN: 9780134514895