Extending VLANs over the Internet

[Qacer]

Is it possible to extend VLANs over the Internet?

If so, how is it accomplished?

 

[Cooky]

No.
You can extend VLAN's over WAN w/ technologies like AoMPLS though.

 

[Qacer]

Ah.. Okay. Someone mentioned layer 2 tunneling earlier, and it got me wondering. I thought that if you tunnel, then the two end devices will think that they are still connected to each other at the Layer 2 level.

 

[Cooky]

Yes, layer 2 tunnel can provide that functionality.
AToM that I'd mentioned above is one of the L2VPN technologies.

Usually these don't go over the "Internet" though.
Maybe I was nit picking, but Internet is a layer 3 entity, so L2VPN solutions are provided through carrier's networks.

 

[imagoon]

VLANs are a layer 2 device. Generally you don't want to extend layer 2 out to the internet. You would need to encapsulate the layer 2 in to the layer 3 system. Getting you physical > layer 2 > layer 3 >"enc layer 2 > enc layer 3 +" which adds a lot of latency and other issues like possible errors from framing sizes not matching etc. It is a very rare that there is ever a good reason to do this.

 

[spidey07]

I'm not seeing any reason you couldn't use a tunnel and bridge the tunnel endpoints to whatever vlan you want. Routers can also be bridges.

 

[imagoon]

Originally posted by: spidey07
I'm not seeing any reason you couldn't use a tunnel and bridge the tunnel endpoints to whatever vlan you want. Routers can also be bridges.

Yeah but is there any good reason to do it? At least most of the time?

 

[spidey07]

When you need layer2 adjacency for server/database clustering comes to mind as well as vmotion. Most of the times you can work around it but in highly redundant, multiple data center stuff sometimes you have to.

God forbid if you're still running SNA/DLSW you will be bridging over a layer3 network.

 

[m1ldslide1]

MPLS VPN FTW. How's that for acronym masturbation?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
MPLS VPN FTW. How's that for acronym masturbation?

MPLS RSVP VRF FTW.

pownd?

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
MPLS VPN FTW. How's that for acronym masturbation?

MPLS RSVP VRF FTW.

pownd?

You had me at MPLS....