EVPN, as described in RFC 7432, BGP MPLS-Based Ethernet VPN, is an IETF technology that uses a new BGP address family and allows Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) to operate in a similar manner to IP-VPNs, in which the MAC addresses and information to set up flooding trees are distributed by BGP.
EVPN is designed to fill the gaps of traditional L2VPN technologies, such as VPLS. The main objective of EVPN is to build E-LAN services similar to IP-VPNs defined in RFC 4364, while supporting MAC learning in the control plane (distributed using multi-protocol BGP (MP-BGP)), efficient multi-destination traffic delivery, and single-active/active-active multi-homing.
EVPN can be used as the control plane for different data plane encapsulations. The Nokia implementation supports EVPN for MPLS tunnels (EVPN-MPLS), where PEs are connected by any type of MPLS tunnel. EVPN-MPLS is generally used as an evolution for VPLS services. The EVPN-MPLS functionality is standardized in RFC 7432.