Dell OS10 VXLAN with multiple VLANs

Question

Hi,

We are trying to build a multi-tenant environment using our Dell OS10 switches. Specifically, we have multiple distinct tenants, each with multiple VLANs. We would like to bundle all VLANs owned by a tenant into a single VXLAN. I cannot find any information in the documentation on how to keep the VLAN tag when traffic is encapsulated into a VXLAN. Is it possible to do this?

We currently have VXLAN with BGP EVPN running fine, but have not yet found a way to overcome the limitation of essentially only having a single VLAN inside each of the virtual networks.

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Christopher-deHaas,

It will come down to the switch you are using, and what it supports. The document here goes over VXLAN and BGP, and also specify the switches that support them.

Let me know if this helps.

https://dell.to/3MLWJA1

DELL-Erman O · Answer

Hi, I'm sharing the same link without URL shortener https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/dell-emc-smartfabric-os10/vxlan-evpn-ug-10-5-1-pub/vxlan?dgc=SM&cid=304571&lid=spr6911646136&RefID=dtw22_sm6911646136&linkId=163504227

mffhg · Answer

The link does not work.   We are interested in this topic for Dell OS6 (N3200) and Dell OS10 (S5200) switches.

mffhg · Answer

Nope, i cant access the unshortened link, neither while i am logged in to dell.com, nor anonymous. Maybe its only accessible for dell employes and maybe customers with a special support contract?

Please verify the accessability.

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Mffhg,

I can confirm that you're correct, when you have the Dell page set for Germany it fails to locate the page. Now if you sign into Dell, next to your name on the top right you should currently see DE/DE, correct? If so then if you click on it and select the Americas tab, you can then chose United States. After doing so if you click on Ermans link again it should work, then after youre done you can set it back to Germany.

Let me know if that works.

mffhg · Answer

Thank you, that helped.

mffhg · Answer

Do I understand it right, that its only possible to bind only one VLAN to one VNI, so technically dell switches can only tunnel untagged l2 frames through a VNI and its not possible to bind N VLANs to one VNI?

It would be much better if one could tunnel tagged layer 2 frames through one VNI. VXLAN is able to do so. This would lower the configuration overhead, because you only need one VNI to transport a bunch of VLANs.

DELL-Erman O · Answer

I'm not sure if this will change with the new Smart OS 10 versions to be released, but it looks like that in its current form.

mffhg · Answer

I am very surprised, that its not possible to send tagged frames through one VNI.

Even in official documents from dell is a description of the VXLAN protocol which shows, thats is possible to transport tagged frames through a VNI:

Dell EMC Networking Virtualization Overlay with BGP EVPN

Chapter 3.1, Page 10.

So, is it possible to leave a feature request so that OS10 is able to transport tagged frames through one VNI in future versions?

DELL-Erman O · Answer

Unfortunately, I do not have contacts that I can reach from the public where I can request such a feature upgrade regarding Smart OS 10. I don't know what kind of evaluation criteria the development and engineering team will decide on to add additional features in future versions apart from bug fixes. In this sense, I do not want to make a false expectation and mislead.

Networking General

Dell OS10 VXLAN with multiple VLANs

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