PE Router Overview

PE routers are located at the edge of the public network and interface with the CE router using an IGP such as OSPF. The PE router is aware of each customer‘s VPNs and associated network prefixes. Each PE maintains separate routing tables that are completely independent of each other. The routing table belonging to a specific customer site resides in the customer VRF. This separation allows duplicate addresses among the various VPN customers and eliminates routing ambiguity by applying an RD specific to each VPN to each prefix in the routing table. Aspects of the PE router L3 VPN configuration are performed in both the VRF instance for the L3 VPN and the global VRF.