CHAPTER
16-1
Cisco 12000/10700 v3.1.1 Router Manager User Guide
OL-4455-01
16
MPLS VRF Management
This c hapter d escrib es t he various M PL S VRF M ana geme nt t asks tha t c an be per forme d using the
Cisco 12000/ 10720 Rou ter Manag er applicat ion. This cha pter is divided into th e following main
sections:
•Introdu ction t o VR F M anag eme nt
•VRF Mana ge ment Wor kflows
•Launch ing th e MPLS VR F Manag emen t Windows
•Creating VRF Objects in the EM
•Creatin g and Co nfiguring the V RF Po licy on a Device
•Associating a VRF Policy with an Interface
•VRF Fault Management
Introductio n to VRF Management
VPN Routing and Forwarding (VRF) is an IOS route table instance for connecting a set of sites to a VPN
service. A VRF contai ns a templ ate of VPN Rout ing/Forwardi ng table i n a PE router.
The overlapping addresses, usually re sulting fr om usage of private IP addresses in customer networks,
are one of the major obstacles to successful deployment of peer-to-peer VPN implementation. The
MPLS/V PN technology provi des an elegant soluti on to dilemma .
Each VPN has its o wn routing and forwarding table in the router , so any customer or site that belongs to
a VPN is provided access only to the set of routes contained within that table. Any PE router in the
MPLS/ VPN network therefore contains a number of per-VPN routing tables and a global routing table,
that i s u sed t o reac h othe r ro ut er s in th e pr ovide r ne twork . Effectively, a n umb er o f v irtua l r out ers ar e
creat ed i n a si ngle physi cal route r.
VRF Manager provides an encapsulation for the VRF template as EM Object Model for better
manage abilit y and user fri endly Graphica l User Int erface (G UI).