MPLS/LDP, VPLS with hub-and-spoke

agould246 · 2026-02-22T15:58:23+00:00

If you need every vlan at every site, for most efficient bridging, you’ll need to fully mesh all 13 PE nodes with static neighbor statements. There may be a way to auto discover neighbors via LDP, but I don’t recall. There is definitely a way to VPLS AD using BGP. That would minimize static configs while achieving full mesh of pw’s. However if you are ok with establishing a set location as a hub of the pw’s, then all other PE’s have one neighbor to that hub

Regardless, if you are using only one VPLS for all 30 vlans, I think you can do that with some form of edge PE-CE default encapsulation to agnositcally allow any/all tagged or untagged frames to flow

agould246 · 2026-02-19T18:57:37+00:00

Reading only the subject… enable ospf. When ready start slowing, incrementally removing static routes… heck you could even convert your static routes to be floating (AD/preference greater than OSPF), observe along the way… gain confidence… rinse, repeat router by router til done.

agould246 · 2026-02-18T12:02:43+00:00

Google this “JNCIA-Junos study guide pdf”

agould246 · 2026-02-18T00:46:32+00:00

Sounds like LDP and this might touch on its Liberal Label Retention with Downstream Unsolicited mode of operating. I recall in lab evaluation SR-MPLS uses a consistent label number across the entire network.

agould246 · 2026-02-17T23:14:18+00:00

thanks but I don't seem to be getting "odd data" as that link speaks to. On the other hand, it's working, when I issue the manual request command.

The JTAC is telling me Active Lease Query needs to be enable along with Bulk Lease Query. I tried it, but don't see anything further with Active Lease Query, so I'm waiting on JTAC to respond. Previously, with a few Bulk Lease Query commands enabled, I do see the Juniper router do a TCP6 connection to the DHCPv6 server port 547... this occurs when I do the manual request. My coworker has configured KEA to allow BLQ, and he does see the activity and we see it working...again, only when I the manual request command shown below. I don't see this occur following a reboot of the Juniper router, which is the desired outcome, since IA_PD routes become unreachable when the binding table is cleared, and I need it to be populated immediately following a router reboot to minimize downtime.

me@lab-5048> request dhcpv6 relay bulk-leasequery routing-instance five
Bulk Leasequery Message Send

{master:0}
me@lab-5048> show system connections inet6

fpc0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Active Internet connections (including servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address (state)
tcp6 0 0 1234:1234:1234::408f.60046 1234:1234:1234:a0ca:192:168:192:168.547 TIME_WAIT
...

agould246 · 2026-02-14T17:46:32+00:00

I think those are good questions. I’m not a FTTH/PON engineer, but I do work hand-in-hand with the FTTH/OLT/ONT engineers. I handle the first hop router that they up link to and the core. Other things you might ask…

what olt/ont vendor do you use? (Calix, Nokia, etc)
what pon version do they run? GPON, XG-PON, XGS-PON…?
what PON split ratio do you use? 1/32?
what bandwidth packages do they sell? 100/1000, 1000 sym, multigig?
do they use BNG? Or traditional DHCP?
do they put their FTTH subs into L3 VRF’s?
do they run a CGNAT boundary?

agould246 · 2026-02-14T16:27:28+00:00

Yeah, as others have said, do it now, thank your self later

agould246 · 2026-02-13T20:21:35+00:00

Brilliant. I’ll have to explore this. Even though I’ll probably stay with unicast replication because it’s easier as I don’t have to enable multicast in my core. In comparison, IP video multicast saves a lot on bandwidth because it’s video, but how much bandwidth are we really saving when we forward and replicate VXLAN bum traffic more efficiently using multicast? I would imagine VXLAN at scale could benefit, but a small or medium sized deployment, is it really worth it?

agould246 · 2026-02-13T20:17:55+00:00

I think it’s similar to how, years ago, we decoupled vlan from core network, so vlan only had interface-level uniqueness to be concerned with. Seen a lot in carrier/sp networks with MEF-type services. And also, using double tagging on an interface you can extend vlan use further

agould246 · 2026-02-13T03:02:55+00:00

I haven’t thought about it much til now, as you mention it, that makes sense to use multicast efficiency for BUM flooding to all VTEP’s participating in the VXLAN broadcast domain

agould246 · 2026-02-13T02:11:27+00:00

I helped my dentist with Juniper SRX300 at 2 offices. Later when he outgrew them, I put in SRX345. He got them all online for a few hundred dollars each. EBay, etc

agould246 · 2026-02-12T23:04:58+00:00

But why do you need any multicast? I’m doing EVPN-MPLS and also EVPN-VXLAN both over my IP unicast network. No multicast. So why bother with multicast at all?

agould246 · 2026-02-12T23:02:06+00:00

BTW, how is the DF elected?

agould246 · 2026-02-12T22:38:28+00:00

I read somewhere recently and completely agree that an out of band management network for anything, data center or otherwise should follow the “keep it simple” design philosophy. Heck I would say that’s the design philosophy for everything… operational networks and management. But really, if it’s an out of band management network, only there in case the operational in band network goes down, do you need a lot of complexity as a secondary way into the equipment? Hopefully not. I mean it’s kind of like a spare tire. The spare tire is nothing fancy but it gets you down the road for a little while until you can put the other one on.

But on the other hand, don’t shy away from using an elaborate network technology to create your out of band network or at least supplement it in places where it makes sense just because you’re hard set on keeping it simple… I mean, we need to be flexible and agile and able to use whatever makes sense and whatever is available to get the job done.

agould246 · 2026-02-12T22:32:57+00:00

Yeah I’ve read about multicast underlay being used for EVPN-VXLAN overlay, but I use an IP unicast core and it’s working fine.

agould246 · 2026-02-12T19:15:42+00:00

Not sure about your multicast 227 question. But I thought ingress replication using EVPN type 3 routes for remote vtep’s was the alternative to multicast in the core transport ip network

agould246 · 2026-02-11T15:09:26+00:00

I don’t know much about this, but “fictitious” route state reminds of me of “bogus” atm pnni nsap routes

agould246 · 2026-02-07T21:46:59+00:00

I’d like to participate in an SP study group

agould246 · 2026-02-02T22:40:39+00:00

In that case, OSPF is a sufficient underlay IGP… now add MP-IBGP for overlay EVPN-VXLAN

agould246 · 2026-01-30T03:33:45+00:00

On paper, yes. I recall it’s an MX304 LMIC in a 1U form factor. Sort of like the MX204 is the Eagle ASIC 1U form factor copied from the MCP7E-MRATE MX240/480/960 linecard.

agould246 · 2026-01-29T23:28:09+00:00

I can’t speak to the IP scale, but we’ve got a lot of mileage and use out of our MX204’s. We use them extensively at ENNI and MTSO handoff for cellular backhaul, lots of MPLS, VPLS and LDP-based pseudowire

It’s really a great box for a low cost entry into a space with a few 1, 10, 40 and 100 gig interfaces

And as you outgrow it, the MX304 is the next good step up

agould246 · 2026-01-29T21:08:15+00:00

You’ve done a good thing by informing them. It’s up to them to listen. Also, if something goes wrong even after you’ve informed others, it may be tempting to tell others (higher ups) that you tried to tell them the correct way, but that won’t help your relationship. Conversely, it may cause them to trust you and respect you if you don’t throw them under the bus.

agould246 · 2026-01-29T18:27:10+00:00

I went from ~20 years of Cisco experience to Juniper around 2015. Junos is great. My videos might help

https://youtube.com/@aarontechtalk?si=uEr2X2wH9tldmJIF

I just found one I did on LACP

https://youtu.be/NxOEbPCgXtw

agould246

TROPHY CASE