6VPE Configuration example: IPv6 over MPLS Scenario

Today I am going to talk about the 6VPE configurations on the different routers in the BGP/MPLS environment to support IPv6 VPN. This article is specially for the CCIE Service provider who are studying on the MPLS IPv6 environment

Lets talk about the 6VPE now or you can say that IPv6 configuration over MPLS.

6VPE uses the existing MPLS/IPv4 core infrastructure for IPv6 transport. It enables IPv6 sites to communicate with each other over an MPLS/IPv4 core network using MPLS label switched paths (LSPs).

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.

The labeled IPv6 VPN prefixes are advertised between PE's using MP-BGP and are encoded with AFI 2 (IPv6) and SAFI 128 (MPLS labeled IPv6 VPN). The BGP next-hop address will be an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address as observed in the verification section below.

Fig 1.1- 6vPE in MPLS networks

In the example above we have provided the basic configuration required to provide connectivity between CE routers (R5 and R6) over the IPv4 MPLS core.

Router R1 Configurations in MPLS Networks