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Unlocking the Secrets of vEdge Routers: A Journey Through OMP Routes

July 27, 2023 ,

Unlocking the Secrets of vEdge Routers: A Journey Through OMP Routes

You're a network engineer, tasked with managing a massive Wide Area Network (WAN) that spans across multiple sites and locations. You're juggling several edge routers, each connected to different transport networks, all while trying to maintain optimal network performance and security. It's enough to make your head spin.

Enter vEdge routers, the solution to your networking woes. But how do they actually work? Well, one key component is the Overlay Management Protocol (OMP)

Cisco SDWAN OMP Routes
Fig 1.1- OMP Routes

What exactly is OMP?

The Cisco Overlay Management Protocol (OMP) is a TCP-based protocol that builds and maintains the SD-WAN control plane, comparable to BGP. OMP is used to communicate between the vEdge routers and the vSmart controllers, as well as between the controllers themselves.
  • Transport Locators (TLOCs) are distributed among network locations in the sd-wan domain.
  • Information about service-side reachability is distributed.
  • Information on service-chaining is distributed.
  • Data plane security settings, VPN labels, and crypto keys are distributed.
  • Policy for data distribution and application-aware routing (AAR).
Overlay Management Protocol (OMP), which allows vEdge routers to advertise three types of routes to vSmart controllers.
  • OMP vRoutes
  • TLOC Routes
  • Service Routes

OMP vRoutes

These are prefixes learned from the local networks of each WAN edge router. Think of them as the building blocks of your network, connecting each site to the overlay fabric. OvRoutes can be locally connected prefixes or ones learned from dynamic routing protocols like OSPF and BGP. 

Once vEdge devices learn these prefixes, they redistribute them into OMP as vRoutes, allowing them to be carried across the overlay fabric.

TLOC routes

These advertise Transport Locators (TLOCs) of the connected WAN transports. But wait, there's more! TLOC routes also include additional attributes like public and private IP addresses, colors, TLOC preferences, site ID, weight, tags, and encryption keys. 

In simpler terms, TLOC routes help vEdge routers determine the best transport path for each packet of data, based on factors like network availability and security.

Service routes

These advertise embedded network services like firewalls and IPS that are connected to the vEdge local-site network. Service routes help ensure that network services are consistently available and can be easily accessed by all authorized users.

Conclusion

With OMP routes, vEdge routers can easily communicate with vSmart controllers and other devices in the overlay fabric. This communication is essential for the seamless functioning of the vEdge routing system. So, the next time you hear about vEdge routers, remember that the OMP routes are what make them stand out from the rest!

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