At a small company I recently joined; they have a MPLS transport network with a dozen POPs running on low-end IOS-XR gear offering L2VPN services.

The director wants to offer IP transit services (full tables) using low-end IOS-XE gear (asr1000s) over that MPLS transport using xconnects/pseudowires. I suggested buying higher end SP gear and providing both L2VPN and L3VPN services with the same set of equipment and thus putting the IP transit in a VRF. I was told this isn’t possible but considering how beefy even middle of the road SP gear is when it comes to the amount of routes in the FIB, I feel this is a no brainer. Am I missing something?

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It would be great to continue with your considerations about BGP add-path vs Internet in VRF.

Initial Response

I did a bit of analysis a while ago, and the memory requirements went through the roof.

• https://blog.ipspace.net/2012/07/is-it-safe-to-run-internet-in-vrf.html
• https://blog.ipspace.net/2013/02/internet-in-vrf-and-lfib-explosion.html

Assuming that’s not a problem you should be reasonably safe.