6PE—IPv6 provider edge device or a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) label switch router (LSR) edge router using IPv6.
6VPE—IPv6 Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider edge device.
AF—address family. Set of related communication protocols in which all members use a common addressing mechanism to identify endpoints. Also called protocol family.
AFI—Address Family Identifier. Carries the identity of the network-layer protocol that is associated with the network address.
BGP—Border Gateway Protocol. A routing protocol used between autonomous systems. It is the routing protocol that makes the internet work. BGP is a distance-vector routing protocol that carries connectivity information and an additional set of BGP attributes. These attributes allow for a set of policies for deciding the best route to use to reach a given destination. BGP is defined by RFC 1771.
CE—customer edge device. A service provider device that connects to Virtual Private Network (VPN) customer sites.
FIB—Forwarding Information Base. Database that stores information about switching of data packets. A FIB is based on information in the Routing Information Base (RIB). It is the optimal set of selected routes that are installed in the line cards for forwarding.
HA—high availability. High availability is defined as the continuous operation of systems. For a system to be available, all components--including application and database servers, storage devices, and the end-to-end network--need to provide continuous service.
IP—Internet Protocol. Network-layer protocol in the TCP/IP stack offering a connectionless internetwork service. IP provides features for addressing, type-of-service specification, fragmentation and reassembly, and security.
IPv4—IP Version 4. Network layer for the TCP/IP protocol suite. IPv4 is a connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol.
IPv6—IP Version 6. Replacement for IPv4. IPv6 is a next-generation IP protocol. IPv6 is backward compatible with and designed to fix the shortcomings of IPv4, such as data security and maximum number of user addresses. IPv6 increases the address space from 32 to 128 bits, providing for an unlimited number of networks and systems. It also supports quality of service (QoS) parameters for real-time audio and video.
MFI—MPLS Forwarding Infrastructure. In the Cisco MPLS subsystem, the data structure for storing information about incoming and outgoing labels and associated equivalent packets suitable for labeling.
MPLS—Multiprotocol Label Switching. MPLS is a method for forwarding packets (frames) through a network. It enables devices at the edge of a network to apply labels to packets (frames). ATM switches or existing devices in the network core can switch packets according to the labels with minimal lookup overhead.
PE—provider edge device. A device that is part of a service provider’s network and that is connected to a customer edge (CE) device. The PE device function is a combination of an MLS edge label switch router (LSR) function with some additional functions to support Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
RD (IPv4)—route distinguisher. An 8-byte value that is concatenated with an IPv4 prefix to create a unique VPN IPv4 (VPNv4) prefix.
RD (IPv6)—route distinguisher. A 64-bit value that is prepended to an IPv6 prefix to create a globally unique VPN-IPv6 address.
RIB—Routing Information Base. The set of all available routes from which to choose the Forwarding Information Base (FIB). The RIB essentially contains all routes available for selection. It is the sum of all routes learned by dynamic routing protocols, all directly attached networks (that is-networks to which a given device has interfaces connected), and any additional configured routes, such as static routes.
RT—route target. Extended community attribute used to identify the Virtual Private Network (VPN) routing and forwarding (VRF) routing table into which a prefix is to be imported.
VPN—Virtual Private Network. Enables IP traffic to travel securely over a public TCP/IP network by encrypting all traffic from one network to another. A VPN uses “tunneling” to encrypt all information at the IP level.
VRF—Virtual Private Network (VPN) routing and forwarding instance. A VRF consists of an IP routing table, a derived forwarding table, a set of interfaces that use the forwarding table, and a set of rules and routing protocols that determine what goes into the forwarding table. In general, a VRF includes the routing information that defines a customer VPN site that is attached to a PE device.
VRF table—A routing and a forwarding table associated to a Virtual Private Network (VPN) routing and forwarding (VRF) instance. This is a customer-specific table, enabling the provider edge (PE) device to maintain independent routing states for each customer.