BCBs and BEBs

Table 1. Fabric Mode product support

Feature

Product

Release introduced

Fabric BCB mode

5320 Series

Fabric Engine 8.6

5420 Series

VOSS 8.4

5520 Series

VOSS 8.2.5

Fabric BEB mode

5320 Series

Fabric Engine 8.6

5420 Series

VOSS 8.4

5520 Series

VOSS 8.2.5

The boundary between the core MAC-in-MAC SPBM domain and the edge customer 802.1Q domain is handled by Backbone Edge Bridges (BEBs). I-SIDs are provisioned on the BEBs to be associated with a particular service instance.

In the SPBM core, the bridges are referred to as Backbone Core Bridges (BCBs). BCBs forward encapsulated traffic based on the BMAC-DA.

Important

Important

SPBM separates the payload from the transport over the SPBM infrastructure. Configure all virtualization services on the BEBs at the edge of the network. There is no provisioning required on the core SPBM switches. This provides a robust carrier grade architecture where configuration on the core switches never needs to be touched when adding new services.

A BEB performs the same functionality as a BCB, but it also terminates one or more Virtual Service Networks (VSN). A BCB does not terminate any VSNs and is unaware of the VSN traffic it transports. A BCB simply knows how to reach any other BEB in the SPBM backbone.