Help us improve your experience.

Let us know what you think.

Do you have time for a two-minute survey?

 
 

JCNR Deployment Modes

SUMMARY Read this topic to know about the various modes of deploying the cloud-native router.

Deployment Modes

Starting with Juniper Cloud-Native Router Release 23.2, you can deploy and operate Juniper Cloud-Native Router in L2, L3 and L2-L3 modes, auto-derived based on the interface configuration in the values.yaml file prior to deployment.

Note:

In the values.yaml file:

  • When all the interfaces have an interface_mode key configured, then the mode of deployment would be L2.

  • When one or more interfaces have an interface_mode key configured and some of the interfaces do not have the interface_mode key configured, then the mode of deployment would be L2-L3.

  • When none of the interfaces have the interface_mode key configured, then the mode of deployment would be L3.

In L2 mode, the cloud-native router behaves like a switch and therefore does not performs any routing functions and it doesn not run any routing protocols. The pod network uses VLANs to direct traffic to various destinations.

In L3 mode, the cloud-native router behaves like a router and therefore performs routing functions and runs routing protocols such as ISIS, BGP, OSPF, and segment routing-MPLS. In L3 mode, the pod network is divided into an IPv4 or IPv6 underlay network and an IPv4 or IPv6 overlay network. The underlay network is used for control plane traffic.

The L2-L3 mode provides the functionality of both the switch and the router at the same time. It enables JCNR to act as both a switch and a router simultaneously by performing switching in a set of interfaces and routing in the other set of interfaces. Cell site routers in a 5G deployment need to handle both L2 and L3 traffic. DHCP packets from radio outdoor unit (RU) is an example of L2 traffic and data packets moving from outdoor unit (ODU) to central unit (CU) is an example of L3 traffic.