VOIP MPLS network only 40-50% utilized

We are in the process of upgrading our bandwidth at our branch locations into 3 Mbps MPLS networ and we only run Citrix traffic and IP Voice (Interoffice calls) from our Branch locations into our HQ.
We expect Bandwith utilization to typically max out at 1.6 MBPS. Do you think we need to configure QoS for the voice traffic since the circuit will only be 40-50 percent utilized? My thinking was why should I configure QoS if the bandwidth is only at 40 - 50 percent. The voice traffic should have enough bandwidth to communicate over the wire.
Is my thinking correct or should I configure QoS across this MPLS network? If I should confiure QoS what type do you recommend.
Any responses are greatly appreciated

Hi,
I would configure QoS, because there are not only sunny days in life ...
What if you catch Nimda version 7.2beta, i.e. the newest worm out there trying to blast any valid IP in your network? I would not want to explain to my CEO why we lost telephony as well ...
So on a more technical level: QoS is needed to do resource management. As such you are right in that QoS is not needed if you have enough resources. Yet, who can guarantee this in an IP network at any point in time? I would put it QoS just as an insurance though it would not be needed during normal operation.
Saying this I might add that this is the appropriate usage anyhow, as QoS will not solve issues arising from constant lack of bandwidth. Queueing is meant to handle exceptions. There is always the possibility of the unforseen.
Hope this helps! Please rate all posts.
Regards, Martin

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Influencing BGP attributes within MPLS network

pls take a look at my question and diagram is attached in the file. pls help me to fix this problem.
I have following requirement about traffic paths within the
MPLS network.MPLS network is running MP-BGP4.
1.Traffic from Europe branch to Asia branch go through London
router.
2.Traffic from America branch to Asia branch go through Los Angeles
router.
3.The two paths through London and Los Angeles should have redundancy.
That is if path through London is not accessible all the traffic must
go through Los Angeles. IF Los Angeles path go down all the traffic must
go through London.
4.Traffic from Asia to Europe and America is controlled by redistributing
BGP4 learned routes with different metrics at the London and Los Angeles
routers.So that trafic from Asia branch to Europe go through London and
traffic from Asia to America go through Los Angeles.
I have been using below configs on the PE routers. But it is not working.
In the MPLS network only one path is selected for both traffic from Europe
and America.Pls can anyone help me to fix this problem.
#PE3
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:20
route-target import 1:40
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
interface FastEthernet0/0
description LONDON-GW
ip vrf forwarding CUSTOMER
ip address 1.1.1.2 255.255.255.252
router bgp 65400
address-family ipv4 vrf CUSTOMER
redistribute connected
neighbor 1.1.1.1 remote-as 65401
neighbor 1.1.1.1 activate
neighbor 1.1.1.1 next-hop-self
neighbor 1.1.1.1 soft-reconfiguration inbound
no auto-summary
no synchronization
exit-address-family
ip extcommunity-list 1 permit rt 1:10
ip extcommunity-list 2 permit rt 1:40
route-map EXPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description LONDON-GW
match extcommunity 1
set extcomm-list 1 delete
set extcommunity rt 1:20 additive
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description EU & US-BRANCH
match extcommunity 2
#PE4
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:30
route-target import 1:40
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
interface FastEthernet0/0
description LA-GW
ip vrf forwarding CUSTOMER
ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.252
router bgp 65400
address-family ipv4 vrf CUSTOMER
redistribute connected
neighbor 2.2.2.1 remote-as 65402
neighbor 2.2.2.1 activate
neighbor 2.2.2.1 next-hop-self
neighbor 2.2.2.1 soft-reconfiguration inbound
no auto-summary
no synchronization
exit-address-family
ip extcommunity-list 1 permit rt 1:10
ip extcommunity-list 2 permit rt 1:40
route-map EXPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description LA-GW
match extcommunity 1
set extcomm-list 1 delete
set extcommunity rt 1:30 additive
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description EU & US-BRANCH
match extcommunity 2
#PE1
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:40
route-target import 1:20
route-target import 1:30
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
interface FastEthernet0/0
description EU-BRANCH
ip vrf forwarding CUSTOMER
ip address 3.3.3.2 255.255.255.252
router bgp 65400
address-family ipv4 vrf CUSTOMER
redistribute connected
redistribute static
no auto-summary
no synchronization
exit-address-family
ip route vrf CUSTOMER 172.16.1.0 255.255.255.0 FastEthernet0/0 3.3.3.1 name EU-BRANCH
ip extcommunity-list 1 permit rt 1:10
ip extcommunity-list 2 permit rt 1:20
ip extcommunity-list 3 permit rt 1:30
route-map EXPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description EU-BRANCH
match extcommunity 1
set extcomm-list 1 delete
set extcommunity rt 1:40 additive
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description LONDON-GW(MAIN)
match extcommunity 2
set metric 100
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 20
description LA-GW(BACKUP)
match extcommunity 3
set metric 200
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 30
description OTHER
#PE2
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:40
route-target import 1:20
route-target import 1:30
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
interface FastEthernet0/0
description US-BRANCH
ip vrf forwarding CUSTOMER
ip address 4.4.4.2 255.255.255.252
router bgp 65400
address-family ipv4 vrf CUSTOMER
redistribute connected
redistribute static
no auto-summary
no synchronization
exit-address-family
ip route vrf CUSTOMER 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 FastEthernet0/0 4.4.4.1 name US-BRANCH
ip extcommunity-list 1 permit rt 1:10
ip extcommunity-list 2 permit rt 1:20
ip extcommunity-list 3 permit rt 1:30
route-map EXPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description US-BRANCH
match extcommunity 1
set extcomm-list 1 delete
set extcommunity rt 1:40 additive
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 10
description LONDON-GW(BACKUP)
match extcommunity 2
set metric 200
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 20
description LA-GW(MAIN)
match extcommunity 3
set metric 100
route-map IMPORT-ROUTE permit 30
description OTHER

Hi Manoj
"send-community both" will export both Standard and Extended Communities
The Standard Community Values which we are setting up New on PE3 and PE4 and Matching on PE1 and PE2 can be anything in ASN:nn Format..I Just randomly chose them as 65400:1111 on PE3/PE1 and 65400:2222 on PE4/PE2.
The extcommunity values to be used on PE3/PE4 will be the export RT values used in the VRF Customer Config as posted in your first post..
#PE3
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:20
route-target import 1:40
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
#PE4
ip vrf CUSTOMER
rd 1:10
route-target export 1:30
route-target import 1:40
export map EXPORT-ROUTE
import map IMPORT-ROUTE
I think I mixed up little with PE3 as PE1 and PE4 as PE2 instead ..Revised corrected config would be
On PE3-- Under VPNv4 We enable sending out the normal community values out to the RR.Then we match the extcommunity rt for the VRF Customer and set the community value to 65400:1111 which will be matched at PE1
router bgp 65400
address-family vpnv4
neighbor "RR-IP" send-community both
neighbor "RR-IP" route-map community out
exit-address-family
route-map community permit 10
match extcommunity CUSTOMER
set community 65400:1111
route-map community permit 20
ip extcommunity-list standard CUSTOMER permit rt 1:20
On PE4-- Under VPNv4 We enable sending out the normal community values out to the RR.Then we match the extcommunity rt for the VRF Customer and set the community value to 65400:2222 which will be matched at PE2
router bgp 65400
address-family vpnv4
neighbor "RR-IP" send-community both
neighbor "RR-IP" route-map community out
exit-address-family
route-map community permit 10
match extcommunity CUSTOMER
set community 65400:2222
route-map community permit 20
ip extcommunity-list standard CUSTOMER permit rt 1:30
On PE1-- Under VPNv4 We match the community value 65400:1111 which was set at PE3 and set the LP to 110
router bgp 65400
address-family vpnv4
neighbor "RR-IP" route-map community in
exit-address-family
route-map community permit 10
match community CUSTOMER
set local-preference 110
route-map community permit 20
ip community-list standard CUSTOMER permit 65400:1111
On PE2-- Under VPNv4 We match the community value 65400:2222 which was set at PE4 and set the LP to 110
router bgp 65400
address-family vpnv4
neighbor "RR-IP" route-map community in
exit-address-family
route-map community permit 10
match community CUSTOMER
set local-preference 110
route-map community permit 20
ip community-list standard CUSTOMER permit 65400:2222
Make Sure that RR is enabled to propogate the normal BGP communities as well...
Hope this helps to answer your question..Please let me know for any clarifications..
Regards
Varma

Path Selection for Routes Across MPLS Network

Customer hub site has two CE routers with two links connected to two seperate PE routers in the Carrier's MPLS network. At the customer's remote site one CE router on a single link is connected to PE router in MPLS network.
How can I configure the CE routers at the hub site to advertised the same network across the MPLS network to the CE router at the remote site? Also, how can I configure the CE router at the remote site to select on of the router as the primary and the other as secondary? Can I use local-preference on the CE router at the remote site to selected on path over the other.
I'm not sure if this makes any sense. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

Even with multiple RDs for VRFs belonging to the same VPN, you still need IBGP multipath, correct? Multiple RDs is just to get around the RR restriction.
Also, you posted this message a while back:
"If you have many VPN customers all using the same addresses (most likely rfc1918), the fact that they have different RDs and that the PE prepends the RD to the prefixes exchanged between PEs will make the same prefixes different in the MPLS VPN core
cust1 advertises 192.168.1.0/24 with RD 1:1 therefore
VPNv4 prefix is 1:1:192.168.1.0
cust2 advertises 192.168.1.0/24 with RD 1:2 therefore
VPNv4 prefix is 1:2:192.168.1.0"
My test lab does not support the IBGP multipath command, and thus even with different RDs, it still only installs one best path.
I understand that RD = make unique VPNv4 routes in SP space, and that RT = what to import into the VRF. However, I am having a hard time visualizing the scenario with mutiple RDs for the same VPN for load balancing purposes. I am trying to understand the logic behind it.
Per your example, if both 1:1 and 1:2 are received by the remote PE, assuming IBGP multipath is enabled, why would the remote PE load balance between the two links? Why would it assume that the hub subnets are reachable via two different PEs, and that it's not two different, isolated VPNs altogether?
Is it b/c you imported both 1:1 and 1:2 into a VRF at the remote PE?

I have an older Airport Extreme (disc shaped) that we use with my wife's PowerBook (OS 10.5.8) and my MacBook Pro (OS 10.9.4). We currently only have Airport Utility on her Mac, but I want to upgrade the utility so I can use it on mine.

I have an older Airport Extreme (disc shaped) that we use with my wife's PowerBook (OS 10.5.8) and my MacBook Pro (OS 10.9.4). We currently only have Airport Utility on her Mac, but I want to upgrade the utility so I can use it on mine. Which version of the utility will work on my MacBook, and still control the older Airport Extreme?

if I update the Airport to the latest version, and "control" it with my MacBook Pro, will the older G4 still be able to use the signal from the new Airport?
Yes. Your G4 shouldn't have any difficulty connecting to a Wi-Fi network provided by the latest 802.11ac AirPorts as they support the earlier radio modes that the G4 uses.

Routing Protocol recommendation for MPLS Network

I am in the process of building a 14 site MPLS network for voice and data traffic. The vendor installing the network has configured RIPv2 as the routing protocol. I am considering switching this over to EIGRP. Can anyone explain to me why this would be better or should I just stay with RIP.
Thanks

Hi Chip,
Its not very clear whether you are implementing a MPLS network or implementing a Network over MPLS for an end user with 14 sites.
1) If MPLS network then other IGP variants than OSPF and ISIS best avoided. Now if the choice is between ISIS and OSPF then my personal recommendation would be OSPF. And this decision is purely driven by Operational Considerations rather than any technical advantages. Since at the end of the day what matters is how easy it is to implement add delete or troubleshoot the network.
2)If for End User then it would not be right to recommend EIGRP or RIP or OSPF without knowing the current size & topology of each of these 14 sites, as well as the desired expansion plans. But if these 14 sites are the only sites and are all standalone branch sites connecting over MPLS VPN then RIP,EIGRP or OSPF can be implemented as per your and customer comfort.
HTH-Cheers,
Swaroop

Routing to MPLS network

Hi,
We have several branch offices connected via a managed MPLS network. Each MPLS router in the branch office is connected to the local LAN switch, with its separate firewall and internet access router. How do we direct traffic from the local network (unmanaged) to the private IP addresses in the MPLS network (managed)? Can static routes be configured on the ASA5505 firewall to route traffic to MPLS router?
ISP router>local router>ASA5505 firewall>LAN switch>MPLS router>MPLS cloud.

Said
Is the LAN switch layer 2 only or layer 3 capable. If you do not have access to the MPLS router you have 2 options
1) Add a route on the ASA for the private MPLS networks pointing to the MPLS router. You will need to enable hairpinning on the ASA.
Set the default-gateway of the clients on your LAN switch to be the ASA.
2) If your switch is a Layer 3 switch then you can do this in a much cleaner way. Create the L3 vlan interface(s) for the client vlan(s) on the switch and then you can use statics on the L3 switch eg.
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 "ASA inside interface"
ip route "MPLS private net" "subnet mask" "MPLS router inside interface"
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MPLS Network for an Enterprise

Hi,
I am desiging an MPLS network for an enterprise customer. He would like to have both L2 and L3 VPNs (EoMPLS and VPLS). Initially I thought of positioning ASR1000 but later I ruled it out as it does not support VPLS. So it comes down to 7600. Then I have seen that we have 67XX, ES20 and SIP400 line cards. So what should be my choice for CE facing and Core facing line cards to run all the MPLS services (including MVPN). The customer needs only 3 ports to the access and 1 port as uplink.
Regards,
Prakash

Hi Prakash,
Definately go for the 7600 ES Line Cards:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps368/data_sheet_c78-570730.html
They look like more than enough to do the job for your requirements.
HTH.
Regards,
Joe.

Connecting 2 MPLS networks together

Need some advice on connecting 2 MPLS networks together from two different ISPs. The compnay I am working with is using AT&T MPLS and they aquired a smaller company using SBC MPLS. We want to connect the two networks together for the shorterm and eventually the goal would be to add te new sites to the AT&T MPLS.

You have two options here,
1) you can talk to you SP regarding the situation and they should be able to put across a inter-AS solution for you, and this should be possible looking at the close ties between ATnT and SBC.
2) If you plan to go ahead with this on your own, since its only a transitionary situation, you can think of interconnecting both the networks core at the closest possible location terming them as border gateway routers. And then keep migrating the smaller companies sites to the your existing SP's network.
But do note that if there are overlapping IP addresses between both the networks then you may have to consider a NAT gateway in addition to the border gw routers. If you plan to use the Inter-as option, the SP would have a NAT gw solution for the same.
Overall you need a crystal clear plan before you go ahead with any of the options.
HTH-Cheers,
Swaroop

In our enterprise MPLS network we are using 192.168.20.0/24 subnet, in this subnet we have not assigned the IP 192.168.20.200/30 & 204/30, But still these subnets are reachable . Are these NNI IP ...Please explain.

In our enterprise MPLS network we are using 192.168.20.0/24 subnet, in this subnet we have not assigned the IP 192.168.20.200/30 & 204/30, But still these subnets are reachable . Are these NNI IP ...Please explain.

I have checked with ISP, there response is like below:
Those are the NNI to GBNET IPs for Dominican Republic. They are Network IPs. You should be able to ping them-that means they are working.
WANRT01#show ip route | include 192.168.20.20
B        192.168.20.200/30 [20/0] via 192.168.20.226, 02:18:29
B        192.168.20.204/30 [20/0] via 192.168.20.226, 02:18:29
Here its shows from any of our MPLS site we are able to trace the IP and it seems like, 192.168.20.204/30 is one more site but in actual its not.
INMUMWANRT01#ping 192.168.20.205
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.20.205, timeout is 2 seconds:
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 224/232/260 ms
INMUMWANRT01#trace
INMUMWANRT01#traceroute 192.168.20.205
Type escape sequence to abort.
Tracing the route to 192.168.20.205
VRF info: (vrf in name/id, vrf out name/id)
1 192.168.20.226 24 msec 24 msec 24 msec
2 192.168.20.206 [AS 8035] 232 msec 232 msec 252 msec
3 192.168.20.205 [AS 8035] 224 msec 224 msec *

How can I sync all files in 2 Macs using local network only?

I am looking to equip a small office with 2 Macs, iMac and MBAir. I would like for all files to be synced (either automatically, daily, or worst case, on demand). The trick is that this has to be in the local network only, as these are sensitive files. There will be a QNAP NAS on the network as well if it matters.
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Here are three ways to do it. None of the ways is automatic:
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L3 mpls network with out P router, all PE to PE plus daisy chainging

Guys, is it possible to run a core l3 MPLS network over 7600s and 3800s with out any P routers? The reason i aak is because of the particular situation where we will have to daisy chain PE routers due to lack of fiber.
any thoughts?

As martin says absolutley limited problems with this it will work a charm UNTIL yo urun into scaling issues. You are daisy chaining all the PEs which would also suggest to me that you are daisy chaining your RRs. In an mpls network the RR's have enough state to handle to keep them busy enough without also having to deal with passing labels about the network. Also you will have any cisco account team breaking down your door putting the fear of god into you for not having at least 2 P routers ;-). So yes you can indeed run it like you say but the lifetime of your network will be very limited indeed. If your not an SP then dont be concerned - unless you are an enterprise with 10000000s routes then id start to worry. Oh they (cisco) also state that PEs also have enough to do in their life without passing labelled packets about the place. sit and think about what your poor PE is having to do daily it could be 100 vrfs routing tables, which in turn means layer 3 lookups to find out where the packet has to go, qos, multicast, bgp, ospf, rip, eigrp, your own internal IGP, TE tunnels, RSVP - this poor router has enough to do without also adding transit traffic. ;-)

Equivalent for an "IP accounting" in MPLS Network

Do we have an equivalent for an IP accounting in an interface in MPLS network. I would like to know this to identify traffic flowing across a WAN interface which is being tag/label switched

Thanks gopal. However this command "show tag-switching forwarding table" did not help me find a host in a network choking up the WAN link. I heard from one of the cisco reps saying cisco is releasing an IOS to do this in Feb. I hope that helps.

Running Large Backups over an MPLS Network

We are opening up a second data center at my organization. The location is about 60 miles from our primary data center.
At our primary data center we use an MPLS network for our WAN. We have ll remote locations on our WAN and we have a DS-3 that connects to our primary data center.
At our new second data center we will connect it to the MPLS network.
Do you think we should run our backups between the 2 data centers across the MPLS or do you think we should order a seperate private line or ethernet type service between the 2 data centers? All back ups from our primary data center will continually move across the network to our new secondary data center.
Do you think MPLS is a good technology to run large back ups across? Is it reliable enough

"Do you think MPLS is a good technology to run large back ups across?"
Sure.
"Is it reliable enough"
Depends more on your MPLS provider than the technology itself.
Two issues that may be more important to you vs. how "reliable" MPLS is, might be cost of bandwidth vs. other technologies or sharing the MPLS bandwidth with non-backup applications. The latter would depend much on what QoS that might be available to you to insure your backup traffic doesn't adversely impact non-backup traffic.

MPLS network design challenge

Hi,
I have a design issue for which I really like your help.
In a MPLS network there are twoPOP gateway routers (G1,G2) peering with various MPLS VPN Service providers via B2B vrf eBGP peering are in 4 different ASN's. They inturn all peer via VPNv4 eBGP with the Core ASN which comprises of 2 Nos VPNv4 RR's and every site in the ASN haveing 2 P/PE per site. Every P/PE is peering via VPNv4- iBGP with the VPNv4 RR's. The RR's are not in the forwarding path of the traffic.
Every site has 2 Nos CE routers and each CE router does a vrf based ebgp peering with the P/PE's.
The P/PE routers import 2Nos RT exported by the 2 Nos POP G/w routers and inturn selects the best path and pass it to the CE routers.
Now it is seen that the P/PE of all sites is selecting the best path adverstised by G1 instead of G2 based on the AS PATH length and the shortest path is being adverstised by G1. So till a situation arises that the G1 is down till that time the P/PE's are forwarding the outbound traffic from the CE to G1 even also when the IGP cost is adding up high and when there is a direct link failure from the P/PE site to G1 site.
It therefore makes sense that if the direct physical link form a P/PE site to the site G1 is located goes down ,the P/PE's then should choose G2 via another path even when G1 is available.
Does these sort of requirements ever come in SP environments from customers ? if so what are the solutions ..
Thanks in advance
Kas

Hi kas,
This type of requirement come to providers and there are few options which provider can implement.
1- Play with local preference along with import map in vrf if requirement is customer specific. I mean if one customer want that G1 should be primary exit point and other customer want G2 as primary exit than he can use import map (which is similar to route-map )
ip vrf ABCD
rd XX
import map ABCD
route-target export XX
route-target import YY
route-map ABCD permit 20
set local-preference >100
2- Or you can play with As-path prepending option if you want to skip selection based on local preference.
it is in provider interest to provide you solution. as there are options of affecting traffic by using communities.
Please provide diagram and some config for complete solution.
Regards
Mahesh

MPLS Network Backup

We have a MPLS network between Head office & varios branch office located across the globe. Can you suggest me the best possible backup(automatic) for this MPLS? as we are facing lot of breaks/cuts in the MPLS Network.

This is to give a fair idea.
Pls modify the conifg to suit your setup.
router ospf x
router-id x.x.x.x
network 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 1
network 192.168.2.0 0.0.0.255 area 1
network 192.168.3.0 0.0.0.255 area 1
Assumption that you have Area 0 at your MPLS CE for upwards and other VPN router upwards.
interface fa1/0
Description Connection ot MPLS CE
ip add 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
ip ospf cost 10
interface fa1/1
Description Connection to Backup VPN CE
ip add 192.168.2.1 255.255.255.0
ip ospf cost 100
interface vlan 10
Description Connection to Servers Subnet
ip add 192.168.3.1 255.255.255.0
HTH-Cheers,
Swaroop

VOIP MPLS network only 40-50% utilized

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