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MPLS/VPLS for large scale networks

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:21 pm
by jcs
Hi all,

For starters: I am quite new to Mikrotik. I am planning to migrate from a simple "well-known-vendor" 2-router BGP-only network to a large scale Mikrotik-only network, running BGP and MPLS/VPLS.

Currently I am running a test network with 3 routers. At each site I have a local network, wich is routed by BGP and running fine. Next I need a transparent connection from site A to B, using MPLS/VPLS with the links to site C as failover. At this point I get in trouble, when distributing the loopback addresses for MPLS over BGP.

So for distributing loopback addresses for MPLS I tried:
  • Using OSPF: I've got the whole system running, but.... this example network is going to be scaled up quite a bit (approx a 100 PE's), so as far as I know using OSPF is really not an option. Also, setting up a complete OSPF configuration next to BGP to distribute only these addresses seems a bit "duplicate".
  • Using static routes: I've got the VPLS up and running, but without failover.... it's unclear to me how configure a failover this way. This too would be a terrible solution in a large scale setup.
  • Using BGP: To my knowledge this would be best practice. When setting this up, LDP neighbors are recognised and addresses are exchanged, but the labels are not set. The VPLS "tunnels" are up, but due to the missing MPLS labels there is no traffic.
I read all sorts of forum posts, wiki's and watched MUM videos, but the only answers I could find are the ones described above. As described, I really prefer to use BGP for this. Can anyone push me in the right direction, and/or tell me what's best practice in a large network? Thank you in advance!!

(All 3 site interconnections are dedicated 1G fibers.)
MT-Example.PNG

Re: MPLS/VPLS for large scale networks

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 1:44 am
by nz_monkey
OSPF is how this is done... or ISIS if it was supported :D

Use OSPF to distribute your loopback addresses and link-nets. It will easily scale to over a hundred PE's.

Use BGP for signalling the L2VPN and L3VPN.


I hope this helps.

Re: MPLS/VPLS for large scale networks

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 1:42 pm
by jcs
Ah bummer, so I'm stuck with OSPF then :wink:
Thank you very much for your answer!

Re: MPLS/VPLS for large scale networks

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:32 am
by rwrocket
Surely this can be done with eBGP also just as effectively as OSPF?

Re: MPLS/VPLS for large scale networks

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:16 pm
by Anumrak
Link your VPLS tunnel. And for redundancy use VPLS over TE tunnels. After this, your VPLS tunnel will look into TE tunnel. Two TE from A to B and two more from B to A, because te are simplex tunnels. For RSVP-PATH use dynamic CSPF or mark your hops manually.