9.

4 Designing Service Provider-Managed VPNs

MPLS VPN Architecture 

The main MPLS VPN components follow:

 Customer network
 Customer edge—CE router
 Provider network
 Provider edge—PE router
 Provider—P router

The main components of MPLS VPN architecture are the following:

 Customer network: This is a customer-controlled domain.

 CE router: CE routers are located on the edge of the customer network. These
routers have direct connectivity to the P-network.
 Provider network: This is the provider-controlled domain comprising the PE and
core routers. These routers connect the customer sites on the shared infrastructure.
 PE router: The PE router is located at the edge of the MPLS service provider cloud.
It is connected to the CE and P routers.
 P router: P routers are located in the core of the P-network and are connected to
either another P router or the PE router.
Routing in MPLS VPN Architecture

The customer must push all of the routes that will be accessible at the other customer sites to
the CE routers. The customer is responsible for implementing the proper routing protocol for
this task.

The customer and the service provider run a routing protocol between the CE and PE routers.
The customer injects all of the routes that need to be accessible to the other sites into this
routing protocol. It can be the same instance as the internal routing protocol at the customer
sites. It is the matter of agreement between the customer and the service provider. The CE
router peers only to the PE router outside of its own site. The CE router does not peer with
any of the CE routers from the other sites across the P-network.

The PE router redistributes the customer routes to the BGP routing protocol. These
redistributed routes are then carried to the other PE routers, which are used to connect to the
same customer. These routes are redistributed from MP-BGP into IGP. IGP between the PE
and CE routers is then responsible for transferring the routes to the CE router. MP-BGP
sessions are only established between the PE routers in the P-network.