PFR version 3 and Overlay requirement

[satiat]

All,

We are looking into implementing PFR version 3 to take advantage of our dual MPLS service providers. Looking at most of the Cisco documentations on PFR version 3, it seems like it is tightly integrated with Intelligent WAN which takes advantage of DMVPN and mGRE type of overlay. If both of my service providers are running pure MPLS, then is there any hard requirement to use overlay? I am trying to stay away from DMVPN or any type of tunneling for my PFR implementation. 

Thank you so much for your time and my apology in advance if a topic as such is widely conversed about somewhere else. 

I will really appreciate if someone could point me to some documentation regarding my question. 

Thanks again. 

Satiat

[bsiapco]

Hi satiat.

PFRv3 is actually available with  IOS -XE 3.13 and IOS 15.4(3)M. I think you are already aware with this?

You can email me directly at (bsiapco@cisco.com) while im checking on how to implement PFRv3 without tunneling.

Happy to Serve!

Barry

[rays]

Hi I have the same question as above... When implementing dual-mpls design do you still require a DMVPN overlay for IWAN deployment?

Many thanks

Ray

[p.hruby]

Hi,

I also have the same question. Is DMVPN overlay required to implement PfRv3? Or should I use pure MPLS connection as 1st path and DMVPN over Internet as a 2nd path?

Petr

[rlaplante@bhfs.com]

I am working on this type of project now.  I don't know if it is 'required'.  My 2cents is that why wouldn't you implement the DMVPN over both paths?  Having that overlay is a big part of the benefit to pfr / iwan to my understanding.  It separates your transport whatever that is (MPLS/INET etc) from your DMVPN routing and would allow you to migrate to a different MPLS provider or second INET provider without redesigning the DMVPN a second time.

[p.hruby]

I'd like to implement PfR in production environment where MPLS is currently used for communication among sites.  I agree  that DMVPN overlay  has advantages you've mentioned and that it is Cisco recommended way how to implement PfR/IWAN, but on the other hand in brownfield environment it is not so easy to reconfigure peer to peer approach to overlay.

If we decide to implement IWAN, I'm quite sure that we will create DMVPN overlay, but I'd like to know what's behind the requirement to implement DMVPN over MPLS and what kind of troubles I can expect when I use IWAN with peer to peer MPLS communication as a primary path and DMVPN over Internet as a secondary path.

Thanks.

Petr

[rlaplante@bhfs.com]

I guess that I a lucky in a way.  I basically have to swap out both routers at the same time in each office.  So MPLS will the the transport but I get to deploy DMVPN on both links at the same time.  Sorry I'm not much help on this then.

In the lab I have, I can tell you that using eigrp only vs. bgp-eigrp was easier to get things working.  I at first wanted to use BGP-OSPF which is what we currently use.  After fighting it, TAC help get it working with eigrp-BGP but didn't fully explain why (and or I did fully understand why) they used eigrp.  They I came across a document that PRFv3 is able to read into the eigrp topology but cannot read into the ospf topology.  I have sense pulled BGP out and it is simply cleaner config.

[satiat]

Hello,

Good to see some real life implementation of IWAN out there.

Last year, in our implementation, we tried to decouple DMVPN from IWAN and ran into quiet some issues. Policies were not understood and/or implemented by the remote MCs and BRs.

I am getting back on the saddle with a big implementation and planning to follow Cisco's CVD as much as possible. They can be found below.

IWAN Technology Design Guide – Feb 2016:

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Feb2016/CVD-IWANDesignGuide-FEB16.pdf

IWAN Configuration Files Guide – Feb 2016:

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Feb2016/CVD-IWANConfigurationFilesGuide-FEB16.pdf

Since last year, I do see a significant maturity in terms of IWAN technology. I considerable amount of changes has been done to make design redundant and robust.

By the way, you might want to check out APIC-EM and also Cisco Prime Infrastructure for implementation of IWAN. For monitoring and maintenance, I am looking into Liveaction.

Have fun with the technology and Good luck with your implementation.

Thanks.

[Alyza Marie Reyes]

Hello satiat,

How is this implementation going? Were you able to get the documentation you need?

Please let me know if you need additional information.

Feel free to send me an email at alyreyes@cisco.com.

Kind regards!