Information About 6VPE
6VPE is a mechanism to use the IPv4 backbone to provide VPN IPv6 services. It takes advantage of operational IPv4 MPLS backbones, eliminating the need for dual-stacking within the MPLS core. This translates to savings in operational costs and addresses the security limitations of the 6PE approach. 6VPE is more like a regular IPv4 MPLS-VPN provider edge, with an addition of IPv6 support within VRF. It provides logically separate routing table entries for VPN member devices.
Components of MPLS-based 6VPE Network
-
VPN route target communities – A list of all other members of a VPN community.
-
Multiprotocol BGP (MP-BGP) peering of VPN community PE routers – Propagates VRF reachability information to all members of a VPN community.
-
MPLS forwarding – Transports all traffic between all VPN community members across a VPN service-provider network.
In the MPLS-VPN model a VPN is defined as a collection of sites sharing a common routing table. A customer site is connected to the service provider network by one or more interfaces, where the service provider associates each interface with a VPN routing table–known as the VRF table.
For scale information related to this feature, see Cisco Catalyst 3650 Series Switches Data Sheet.