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vJunos-switch Architecture

The vJunos-switch is a single, nested VM solution in which the virtual forwarding plane (VFP) and the Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE) reside in the outer VM. When you start the vJunos-switch, the VFP starts a nested VM that runs the Junos Virtual Control Plane (VCP) image. KVM hypervisor is used to deploy VCP.

The term “nested” refers to the VCP VM being nested within the VFP VM, as shown in Figure 1.

The vJunos-switch can support up to 100 Mbps of throughput using 4 cores and 5GB of memory. Any additional cores and memory configured gets allocated to the VCP. VFP does not need additional memory apart from the minimum footprint supported. The 4 cores and 5GB memory is sufficient for lab use cases.

Figure 1: vJunos-switch Architecture vJunos-switch Architecture

The vJunos-switch architecture is organized in layers:

  • The vJunos-switch is at the top layer.

  • The KVM hypervisor and the related system software described in the software requirements section are in the middle layer.

  • The x86 server is in the physical layer at the bottom.

Understanding this architecture can help you plan your vJunos-switch configuration.

After you create the vJunos-Switch instance, you can use the Junos OS CLI to configure the vJunos-switch interfaces in the VCP. The vJunos-switch supports Gigabit Ethernet interfaces only.