Virtual Private LAN Service
Ethernet is an increasingly important component of a service provider's slate of service offerings. Many customers are requesting the ability to connect local area network (LAN) locations across the country and around the world. To fulfill customer desire, service providers have had to set up complex point-to-point Layer 2 virtual private networks (VPNs) or connect expensive Layer 2 switches to handle traffic.
In JUNOS Release 5.7 and later, an emerging service is available to meet the growing Ethernet needs of service providers and their customers. Virtual private LAN service (VPLS), based on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft of the same name (draft-kompella-ppvpn-vpls-02.txt), is an Ethernet-based multipoint-to-multipoint Layer 2 virtual private network (VPN). With VPLS, multiple Ethernet LAN sites can be connected to each other across an MPLS backbone. To the customer, all sites interconnected by VPLS appear to be on the same Ethernet LAN (even though traffic travels across a service provider network).
This guide explains the background knowledge you need to understand VPLS and provides detailed steps for you to follow to implement it in your network.