The following figure illustrates the components of the Cisco SD-WAN bridging solution.
Bridge Domains
In standard transparent bridging, virtual LANs, or VLANs, segregate LANs into logical LANs, and each VLAN is an isolated broadcast
domain. All VLAN traffic remains in the VLAN, and it is directed to its destination by means of Ethernet switching tables.
The Cisco SD-WAN implementation of bridging overlays the concept of a bridge domain on top of the standard VLAN: A bridge domain comprises a single VLAN, and all the ports within a VLAN are part of a single
broadcast domain. Within each broadcast domain, the standard bridging operations of learning, forwarding, flooding, filtering,
and aging are performed on VLAN traffic to create and maintain the Ethernet switching table (or MAC table) for that VLAN,
and hence for that bridge domain.
Each bridge domain is identified by a number. The VLAN within a bridge domain is identified by an 802.1Q identifier, which
is called a VLAN tag or VLAN ID. Frames within a bridge domain can remain untagged, or you can configure a VLAN ID to tag
the frames. In the Cisco SD-WAN design, the VLAN and the VLAN ID are the property of the bridge domain. They are not the property
of an interface or a switching port.
Ports that connect to the WAN segments are associated with a bridge domain. In the Cisco SD-WAN overlay network, these ports
are the physical Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on Cisco vEdge devices. Specifically, they are the base interfaces, for example, ge-0/0. You cannot use subinterfaces for bridge domain ports.
Each broadcast domain in the Cisco SD-WAN overlay network is uniquely identified by the combination of bridge domain number
and VLAN ID (if configured). This design means that The same VLAN ID can be used in different bridge domains on a single Cisco vEdge device. For example, the VLAN ID 2 can exist in bridge domain 1 and bridge domain 50. In a situation where the VLAN IDs are different,
two bridge domains can include the same port interfaces. For example, both (bridge 2, VLAN 2) and (bridge 10, VLAN 23) can
include interfaces ge0/0 and ge0/1. Here, these two interfaces effectively become trunk ports. However, because of how interface
names are tracked internally, two bridge domains that use the same VLAN ID can have no overlap between the interfaces in the
two domains. For example, if (bridge 1, VLAN 2) includes interfaces ge0/0 and ge0/1, these interfaces cannot be in (bridge
50, VLAN 2).
As mentioned above, all member interfaces within a VLAN are part of a single broadcast domain. Within each broadcast domain,
the standard transparent bridging operations of learning, forwarding, flooding, filtering, and aging are performed on VLAN
traffic to create and maintain the Ethernet switching table, also called the MAC table, for that VLAN.
The Cisco SD-WAN bridging domain architecture lacks the concepts of access ports and trunk ports. However, the Cisco SD-WAN
architecure emulates these functions. For a Cisco vEdge device that has a single bridge domain, the interfaces in the bridge emulate access ports and so the router is similar to a single
switch device. For a Cisco vEdge device with multiple bridge domains that are tagged with VLAN IDs, the interfaces in the bridges emulate trunk ports, and you can
think of each domain as corresponding to a separate switching device.
Native VLAN
Cisco SD-WAN bridge domains support 802.1Q native VLAN. All traffic sent and received on an interface configured for native
VLAN do not have a VLAN tag in its Ethernet frame. That is, they are not tagged with a VLAN ID. If a host is connected on
an interface enabled for native VLAN, the bridge domain receives no tagged frames. If the bridge domain connects to a switch
that support trunk ports or connects to a hub, the bridge domain might receive both untagged and tagged frames.
Native VLAN is used primarily on trunk ports. VLAN provides backwards compatibility for devices that do not support VLAN tagging.
For example, native VLAN allows trunk ports to accept all traffic regardless of what devices are connected to the port. Without
native VLAN, the trunk ports would accept traffic only from devices that support VLAN tagging.
Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB)
Bridge domains and VLANs provide a means to divide a LAN into smaller broadcast domains. Each VLAN is a separate broadcast
domain, and switching within that domain directs traffic to destinations within the VLAN. The result is that hosts within
a single bridge domain can communicate among themselves, but cannot communicate with hosts in other VLANs. So, for example,
if a business places its departments in separate VLANs, people within the finance department would be able to communicate
only with others in that department, but would not be able to communicate with the manufacturing or engineering department.
The only way for traffic to cross Layer 2 VLAN boundaries to allow communicatation between bridge domains is via Layer 3 routing.
This process of marrying switching and routing is done by integrated routing and bridging, or IRB. With IRB, a single Cisco vEdge device can pass traffic among different bridge domains on the same router and among bridge domains on remote vEdge routers. The
only restriction is that all the bridge domains must reside in the same VPN domain in the overlay network.
The Cisco SD-WAN implementation of IRB connects a Layer 2 bridge domain to a Layer 3 VPN domain via an IRB interface. An IRB
interface is a logical interface that inherits all the properties of a regular interface, but it is not associated with a
port or with a physical interface. Each IRB interface is named with the stem “irb” and a number that matches the number of
a bridge domain. For example, the interface irb2 is the logical interface that connects to bridge domain 2. IRB interfaces cannot have subinterfaces.
You create IRB interfaces within a VPN. A VPN domain supports multiple IRB interfaces.
There is a one-to-one association between an IRB logical interface and a bridge domain: an IRB interface can be associated
only with one bridge domain, and a bridge domain can be associated with only one IRB interface. As a result, a bridge domain
can be part of only one VPN in the overlay network.
The IP address of an IRB interface is the subnet of the VLAN that resides in the bridge domain. From a switching perspective,
the IP address of the IRB interface is part of the bridge domain.