Cisco Systems OL-12518-01 manual Using VRF VPNs, Mpls VPN for Storage Architecture

Chapter 4 FCIP over IP/MPLS Core

MPLS VPN Core

Figure 4-9 MPLS VPN for Storage Architecture

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Multiple storage customers can be supported on the same MPLS network. Customer 1 cannot see the customer 2 network because there are separate VPN routing/forwarding (VRF) tables for each customer.

Using VRF VPNs

A VRF VPN tunnel is built to provide a secure, managed network between the storage devices. In addition, MPLS VRF VPNs provide distinct advantages for transporting multicast FCIP. VRF VPNs also provide scalability, performance, and stability of the system.

MPLS VPNs use Multiprotocol Border Gateway Protocol MP-BGP) between the provider edge (PE) routers to facilitate the routes between storage VPN areas. MPLS forwarding is used to carry the packets across the backbone. PE routers can use multiple routing and forwarding instances. BGP propagates reachability information for VPN-IPv4 prefixes among PE routers using MP-BGP. This ensures that the routes for a given VPN are learned only by other members of that VPN, enabling members of the VPN to communicate with each other.

When a VPN route learned from a customer edge (CE) router is injected into BGP, a list of VPN route-target extended-community attributes is associated with it. Typically, the list of route-target community values is set from an export list of route targets associated with the VRF from which the route was learned. Based on the routing information stored in the VRF IP routing table and the VRF Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) table, packets are forwarded to their destination using MPLS. A PE router binds a label to each customer prefix learned from a CE router and includes the label in the network reachability information for the prefix that it advertises to other PE routers.

	Data Center High Availability Clusters Design Guide
OL-12518-01		4-19