[j-nsp] Design issue when dual homing customer edge equipment to 2 different pop locations

[Haynes, Matthew]

Hi All,

What I'm facing is an issue getting a vpls mac table to flush.

Our typical design with a protected ethernet service would be a customer edge device ( or devices ) with dual fiber connections up to two separate pop locations. The pop's themselves always have an aggregation switch with 10Gbps link ( or links depending on bandwidth etc ) up to a MX router. The MX uses vpls to carry the ethernet service across the mpls core and out to the other end of the customer circuit. The vpls circuit is tied to a logical unit on the MX's 10Gbps interface. This would be a single vlan/evc handoff to the customer. ( I have a visio diagram and a jpg image of the design but I can't post to the thread with the attachment on the email )

The problem I'm facing is with vpls mac flushing. If I lose a link between the customer edge device and the aggregation switch, the vpls mac tables don't know to flush on the MX routers causing it not to fail over in a timely fashion.

What I've attempted to get working in the lab is as follows.

MSTP on the MX router is physical interface based, this is due to several customers riding the same physical 10G link from the aggregation switch up to the MX itself.

ERP won't work due to version/compatibility issues between the MX and any aggregation switch and or CPE we currently use.

802.1ag / CFM won't work because it's also tied to the physical interface and I cannot knock down the entire 10G link between  the aggregation switch and the MX due to other customer traffic across the same link. Also, tying this to the VPLS session won't work since a lot of the time there is another circuit from the same customer homed into the aggregation switch. If I knock down the whole vpls session anything homed to that particular pop for that customer goes down. ( if I'm not thinking of something with this technology please let me know )

Any and all suggestions are certainly appreciated and I look forward to hearing other possible solutions. If I've missed anything when using the above technologies please let me know.

Thanks to all of you in advance.

Matt