The 7210 SAS supports next-hop indirection for most types of BGP routes. Next-hop indirection means that BGP next hops are logically separated from resolved next hops in the forwarding plane (IOMs). The separation allows the grouping of routes that share the same BGP next hops such that if the method of BGP next-hop resolution changes, only one forwarding plane update is required, instead of one update for each route in the group. The convergence time after the next-hop resolution change is uniform, and not linear, with the number of prefixes. The next-hop indirection technology supports Prefix-Independent Convergence (PIC). The 7210 SAS uses next-hop indirection whenever possible; there is no option to disable the functionality.
On the 7210 SAS, the following families support next-hop indirection:
label-IPv4
VPN-IPv4
label-IPv6
VPN-IPv6
L2-VPN
PW route