Do you need a cisco router at remote sites when using VRF BGP?

[dallen0]

Hello.....

If you could refer to the attached document and read the following... I need to know if a CISCO router is required for each of the sites.   OR does the ISP (Provider) provide the only required Router in the private cloud?

We want to replace the Cisco 891 with a PepLink but I don't know if we can do that.  Can anyone jump in and help me understand?

When we hear about VRF, its almost synonymous to MPLS VPN. Virtual Routing and Forwarding is commonly used by Service Providers to provide services within an MPLS cloud with multiple customers. The most interesting feature of this is that, VRF allows creation of multiple routing tables within a single router. This means that overlapping use of IP addresses from different customers is possible. Some enterprises use VRF to seggrate their services like VOIP, wireless, geographical location and other varieties.

[Joseph Nelson]

Whether you can replace the 891 device with another device boils down to a single question: Do you need to run BGP with the Service Provider in order to use their service. If you need to run a routing protocol with your service provider, your service is likely a L3VPN (IP VPN) solution ( i.e. you inject your site's routes into the providers L3VPN session, they use MP-BGP+VRF for segmentation within their network).

If, however, they just drop you a L2 connection and provide L2 emulated services ( e.g. L2VPN or VPLS ) across their network, then your device can be whatever you want it to be.

From your device's perspective, it is not VRF aware. That is, it does not know about how the service provider segments your service from another customers. In the L3VPN case, your device is routing-protocol aware. In the L2VPN case, your device is not routing protocol aware and does not need to form adjacency with the service provider's equipment.

HTH.

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