What is a VRF? (for beginners)

[gabriele.tuveri]

Can someone explain what is a VRF (for beginners)

[Deepak Kumar · Accepted solution]

Hi,

VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) is a technology that allows having more than one routing table on a single router. The concept of VRFs on routers is similar to VLANs on switches. VRFs are typically used in combination with MPLS VPNs. VRFs without MPLS is called VRF lite.

I think read this article, You will get more: https://howdoesinternetwork.com/2016/vrf

[gabriele.tuveri]

Thanks a lot for the answer. But how can I implement in a switch?

[FlemmingSkovdal79706]

Thanks, just the answer I needed

[Dineshkadalisince93]

Thanks for the content, keep creating for beginners.

Appreciated 

[salamshina]

In addition to that, it is mostly suitable for larger networks, for instance, service providers or larger enterprise networks.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"In addition to that, it is mostly suitable for larger networks . . ."

Unsure "suitable" would be best word choice as much would depend on network requirements rather than network size, I suspect.

For example, when I worked for Comcast supporting their Enterprise network, with about 5,000 network routers and switches supporting about 100,000 users, we didn't need nor use VRFs.

[salamshina]

You are right, it’s dependent on requirements. 

[Joao Mateus]

Thanks a lot!!

[Captain HoOmi]

Check out this link, you'll also learn how to configure it: 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/12-2/15-02SG/configuration/guide/config/vrf.html

[kunal.newpani1]

Thank you so much.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

@lambertjohn is what you describe possible?  I believe so.

Are VRFs commonly used as described, or should be?  I don't believe so.

Could you provide any additional references that VRFs are commonly used similar to your description, and/or recommendations for using them as described?

The reason for my question, if, say, MovieBox and other streaming traffic were both on the Internet, as your receiving host, using multiple VRFs seems a rather complex solution to insure MovieBox is delivered buffer free.

If MovieBox is on the Internet while the other video streaming is on a private business network, certainly VRFs might be used, although having VRFs use different paths, somewhat, negates the advantages of hardware sharing.

What the latter approach would be like having two VLAN capable switches interconnected via multiple links and mapping VLANs to different links.  It too can be done, but it gets complex, quickly, especially for failure situations.