MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies

10.5. NG MULTICAST FOR L3VPN - BGP/MPLS mVPN (NG mVPN)

The NG mVPN approach brings the mVPN solution back into the framework and architecture of unicast BGP/MPLS VPNs by using BGP for the distribution of the routing information among PEs and MPLS for carrying the customer multicast traffic across the service provider network. This section will present the details of how this is done, by looking at various flavors of multicast deployments.

10.5.1. Requirements for support of PIM-SM SSM in an mVPN

Protocol-independent multicast (PIM) spare mode (SM) is documented in [RFC4601]. PIM-SM has two modes of operations: Single Source Multicast (SSM) and Any Source Multicast (ASM). In the SSM mode of operation, PIM-SM provides a service model where there is a single multicast source and multiple receivers. An example of an application using this model is video distribution from one (well-known) source to several receivers. Although PIM-SM in SSM mode is less widely deployed than PIM-SM in ASM mode, in the context of the mVPN discussion, we will start by presenting it first as a customer mVPN deployment because of two reasons: (1) it is simpler both in the customer domain and the service provider network and (2) the mechanisms used to support it in an mVPN deployment form the foundation for supporting PIM-SM in ASM mode in an mVPN.

To understand what is required to support mVPNs running PIM-SM in SSM mode, let us start by looking at the requirements for PIM-SM in SSM mode in a plain IP (non-VPN) ...