Supported Platforms
Layer 3 VPN Introduction
In Junos OS, Layer 3 VPNs are based on RFC 4364. RFC 4364 defines a mechanism by which service providers can use their IP backbones to provide VPN services to their customers. A Layer 3 VPN is a set of sites that share common routing information and whose connectivity is controlled by a collection of policies. The sites that make up a Layer 3 VPN are connected over a provider’s existing public Internet backbone.
RFC 4364 VPNs are also known as BGP/MPLS VPNs because BGP is used to distribute VPN routing information across the provider’s backbone, and MPLS is used to forward VPN traffic across the backbone to remote VPN sites.
Customer networks, because they are private, can use either public addresses or private addresses, as defined in RFC 1918, Address Allocation for Private Internets. When customer networks that use private addresses connect to the public Internet infrastructure, the private addresses might overlap with the same private addresses used by other network users. MPLS/BGP VPNs solve this problem by adding a VPN identifier prefix to each address from a particular VPN site, thereby creating an address that is unique both within the VPN and within the public Internet. In addition, each VPN has its own VPN-specific routing table that contains the routing information for that VPN only.
