Catalyst 9000 EVPN and SGT

[Johannes Luther]

Hi board,

Is there a way to transport SGT information in a EVPN network?

In SDA, the VXLAN header is slightly modified in the reserved bits to transport the SGT.

Is there a way to do this in EVPN as well? Haven't found any documentation on this.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

interesting question and subject. I (think I) really looked all over the place, but could not find a single reference to SGT over EVPN, so it looks like a bridge too far for now. In the Cisco world, even SGT over VXLAN seems to be limited to the newer Nexus 7/9K and Catalyst 9K switches.

The closest reference I could find is in the Juniper document linked below, where they talk about EVPN-VXLANs, so maybe that is where the future development will be...

https://manuals.plus/m/aec8eed5cb4683320544d4ad586d7e57f1cc1525a3a936ba68f4ac6a863bfbe3.pdf

[Johannes Luther]

Hi Georg,

thanks for the reply. My main focus is Cat9k. I don't consider older platforms like Cat3k, 6k etc. So from my point of view, even if it's supported, it's only supported on C9k Campus platforms.

I found out another potential source for information:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/trustsec/software-platform-capability-matrix.pdf

For the C9k platform the SGT inline tagging support is: "SGT over VXLAN"

However, it's not clear whether this refers to SDA only or if it's supported with EVPN as well.

[Scott Hodgdon · Accepted solution]

@Johannes Luther and @Georg Pauwen ,

We do not support EVPN + SGT with Cat9K and as far as I know there are no plans for this.

Cheers,
Scott Hodgdon

Senior Technical Marketing Engineer

Enterprise Networking and Cloud Group

[Johannes Luther]

Hi Scott,

thank you for the answer.

So if someone seeks for SGT-based microsegmentation within a VRF (VN), SDA would be the correct solution.

If someone wants a fabric in the Campus, but does not need SGT-based microsegmentation, SDA or EVPN would be a viable solution.

[Scott Hodgdon]

@Johannes Luther ,

Correct.

Cheers,
Scott Hodgdon

Senior Technical Marketing Engineer

Enterprise Networking and Cloud Group