VPP IXP Gateway – Part 1
About this series
Ever since I first saw VPP - the Vector Packet Processor - I have been deeply impressed with its performance and versatility. For those of us who have used Cisco IOS/XR devices, like the classic ASR (aggregation service router), VPP will look and feel quite familiar as many of the approaches are shared between the two.
There’s some really fantastic features in VPP, some of which are lesser well known, and not always very well documented. In this article, I will describe a unique usecase in which I think VPP will excel, notably acting as a gateway for Internet Exchange Points.
In this first article, I’ll take a closer look at three things that would make such a gateway possible: bridge domains, MAC address filtering and traffic shaping.
Introduction
Internet Exchanges are typically L2 (ethernet) switch platforms that allow their connected members to exchange traffic amongst themselves. Not all members share physical locations with the Internet Exchange itself, for example the IXP may be at NTT Zurich, but the member may be present in Interxion Zurich. For smaller clubs, like IPng Networks, it’s not always financially feasible (or desirable) to order a dark fiber between two adjacent Continue reading
