Benefits Of 6Pe/Vpe; Deploying Ipv6 Over Mpls Backbones; Ipv6 On The Provider Edge And Customer Edge Routers - Cisco NCS 540 Series Configuration Manual

Benefits of 6PE/VPE

Service providers running an MPLS/IPv4 infrastructure follow similar trends because several integration
scenarios that offer IPv6 services on an MPLS network are possible. Cisco Systems has specially developed
Cisco 6PE or IPv6 Provider Edge Router over MPLS, to meet all those requirements.
Inter-AS support for 6PE requires support of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to enable the address families
and to allocate and distribute PE and ASBR labels.
Note
Cisco IOS XR displays actual IPv4 next-hop addresses for IPv6 labeled-unicast and VPNv6 prefixes.
IPv4-mapped-to-IPv6 format is not supported.

Benefits of 6PE/VPE

Service providers who currently deploy MPLS experience these benefits of Cisco 6PE/VPE:
• Minimal operational cost and risk—No impact on existing IPv4 and MPLS services.
• Provider edge routers upgrade only—A 6PE/VPE router can be an existing PE router or a new one
• No impact on IPv6 customer edge routers—The ISP can connect to any customer CE running Static,
• Production services ready—An ISP can delegate IPv6 prefixes.
• IPv6 introduction into an existing MPLS service—6PE/VPE routers can be added at any time

Deploying IPv6 over MPLS Backbones

Backbones enabled by 6PE (IPv6 over MPLS) allow IPv6 domains to communicate with each other over an
MPLS IPv4 core network. This implementation requires no backbone infrastructure upgrades and no
reconfiguration of core routers, because forwarding is based on labels rather than on the IP header itself. This
provides a very cost-effective strategy for IPv6 deployment.

IPv6 on the Provider Edge and Customer Edge Routers

Service Provider Edge Routers
6PE is particularly applicable to service providers who currently run an MPLS network. One of its advantages
is that there is no need to upgrade the hardware, software, or configuration of the core network, and it eliminates
the impact on the operations and the revenues generated by the existing IPv4 traffic. MPLS is used by many
service providers to deliver services to customers. MPLS as a multiservice infrastructure technology is able
to provide layer 3 VPN, QoS, traffic engineering, fast re-routing and integration of ATM and IP switching.
Customer Edge Routers
Using tunnels on the CE routers is the simplest way to deploy IPv6 over MPLS networks. It has no impact
on the operation or infrastructure of MPLS and requires no changes to the P routers in the core or to the PE
L3VPN Configuration Guide for Cisco NCS 540 Series Routers, IOS XR Release 6.3.x
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dedicated to IPv6 traffic.
IGP or EGP.
Implementing IPv6 VPN Provider Edge Transport over MPLS