Intro to Segment Routing Lab

Foundations Lab

Solution overview

Segment Routing with MPLS or SR-MPLS is the successor to MPLS. SR-MPLS makes the network more robust and intelligent while improving scalability and capacity utilization, leading to lower cost and greater user satisfaction. Segment Routing uses source routing by encoding the path in the packet header. SR-MPLS is highly robust and delivers greater control and flexibility than ever before. This lab provides a hands-on environment that will introduce the user to the basic concepts and various configurations of Segment Routing.

Lab diagram

Goals and objectives

The purpose of this lab is to provide a hands-on lab environment that will familiarize the user with basic routing configuration and Segment Routing MPLS (SR-MPLS) running on Cisco routers. The lab assumes the user has little or no knowledge of MPLS or L3VPNs and L2VPNs. The exercises in this lab are designed to guide the user through the basic SR-MPLS over ISIS and BGP L3VPN and L2VPN setup on Cisco XRv9000 virtual routers. The lab exercises are based on the basic SR-MPLS configuration and commands available in Cisco IOS XR.

SR-MPLS simplifies service deployment by using the MPLS data plane and advertising Prefix labels using standard extensions to the ISIS and OSPF routing protocols, thus eliminating the need for Classical LDP. This lab will focus on SR-MPLS with ISIS, but the same principles apply to OSPF and is available in an alternate lab.

This lab guide will walk the user through the basic configuration of ISIS and Segment Routing MPLS, including L3VPN and L2VPN service provisioning. The lab demonstrates how the SR-MPLS concepts are configured and deployed on Cisco IOS XR using IOS XRv9000 instances in vCloud. This environment utilizes six IOS XRv9000 v7.1.1 routers.

The configuration exercises include: