VXLAN/EVPN – What Are the Challenges in L2-based Networks?
Before diving into a new technology, it is always useful to understand the previous generation of technology, what the limitations where, and how the new technology intends to overcome them. In this post, let’s look at what some of the challenges were with L2-based networks and how VXLAN/EVPN can overcome them. Before starting, I want to balance the messaging a bit on the bad reputation that STP gets:
- Radia Perlman did an excellent job with what was available at that time.
- A lot of the bad reputation comes from a misunderstanding of the protocol.
- STP-based networks can run just fine but they are often misconfigured (related to the point above).
- Many issues come from misbehaving end user devices where protection mechanisms have not been implemented (see the point above).
- It’s natural for technologies to evolve as more compute becomes available and we gain experience.
Keep in mind that the original 802.1D standard was published in 1990. This was long before internet was generally available and our networks were critically important to us. At that time we didn’t measure outages in seconds or even minutes. That said, let’s look at the limitations of a traditional L2 network.
Convergence – In Continue reading
