EVPN. The Essential Parts.

In a blog post back in October 2013 I said I would write about the essential parts of EVPN that make it a powerful foundation for data center network virtualization.  Well just when you thought I'd fallen off the map, I'm back.  :)

After several years as an Internet draft, EVPN has finally emerged as RFC7432.  To celebrate this occasion I created a presentation, EVPN - The Essential Parts.  I hope that shedding more light on EVPN's internals will help make the decision to use (or to not use) EVPN easier for operators.  If you are familiar with IEEE 802.1D (Bridging), IEEE 802.1Q (VLAN), IEEE 802.3ad (LAG), IETF RFC4364 (IPVPN) and, to some degree, IETF RFC6513 (NGMVPN) then understanding EVPN will come naturally to you.

Use cases are intentionally left out of this presentation as I prefer the reader to creatively consider whether their own use cases can be supported with the basic features that I describe.  The presentation also assumes that the reader has a decent understanding of overlay tunneling (MPLS, VXLAN, etc) since the use of tunneling for overlay network virtualization is not unique to EVPN.

Let me know your thoughts below and I will try to expand/improve/correct this presentation or create other presentations to address them.  You can also find me on Twitter at @aldrin_isaac.

Here is the presentation again => EVPN - The Essential Parts

Update:  I found this excellent presentation on EVPN by Alastair Johnson that is a must read.  I now have powerpoint envy :)