Inter-domain VPLS resiliency using multi-chassis endpoints

Note: MC-EP is not supported on 7210 SAS platforms. This section provides an example of how 7210 SAS devices can be used as MTU devices in an MC-EP solution. In this solution the 7750 SR routers provide the MC-EP functionality.

Inter-domain VPLS refers to a VPLS deployment where sites may be located in different domains. An example of inter-domain deployment can be where different Metro domains are interconnected over a Wide Area Network (Metro1-WAN-Metro2) or where sites are located in different autonomous systems (AS1-ASBRs-AS2).

Multi-chassis endpoint (MC-EP) provides an alternate solution that does not require RSTP at the gateway VPLS PEs while still using pseudowires to interconnect the VPLS instances located in the two domains.

MC-EP expands the single chassis endpoint based on active-standby pseudowires for VPLS shown in the following figure. In the solution shown by the following figure, 7210 devices are used as MTUs.

Figure: H-VPLS resiliency based on AS pseudowires

The active-standby pseudowire solution is appropriate for the scenario when only one VPLS PE (MTU-s) needs to be dual-homed to two core PEs (PE1 and PE2).