Dell S4048T User Manual

Virtual Routing and Forwarding
(VRF)
Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) allows a physical router to partition itself into multiple Virtual Routers
(VRs). The control and data plane are isolated in each VR so that traffic does NOT flow across VRs.Virtual
Routing and Forwarding (VRF) allows multiple instances of a routing table to co-exist within the same router
at the same time.
VRF Overview
VRF improves functionality by allowing network paths to be segmented without using multiple devices. Using
VRF also increases network security and can eliminate the need for encryption and authentication due to
traffic segmentation.
Internet service providers (ISPs) often take advantage of VRF to create separate virtual private networks (VPNs)
for customers; VRF is also referred to as VPN routing and forwarding.
VRF acts like a logical router; while a physical router may include many routing tables, a VRF instance uses
only a single routing table. VRF uses a forwarding table that designates the next hop for each data packet, a
list of devices that may be called upon to forward the packet, and a set of rules and routing protocols that
govern how the packet is forwarded. These VRF forwarding tables prevent traffic from being forwarded
outside a specific VRF path and also keep out traffic that should remain outside the VRF path.
VRF uses interfaces to distinguish routes for different VRF instances. Interfaces in a VRF can be either physical
(Ethernet port or port channel) or logical (VLANs). You can configure identical or overlapping IP subnets on
different interfaces if each interface belongs to a different VRF instance.
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Dell S4048T Specifications

General

Switching Capacity	1.44 Tbps
Rack Units	1U
Form Factor	Rack-mountable
Power Device	Internal power supply
Power Redundancy	Optional
Product Type	Switch
Jumbo Frame Support	Yes
Routing Protocol	OSPF, BGP, RIP, VRRP, PIM-SM, IGMP
Remote Management Protocol	SNMP, RMON, Telnet, SSH
Features	Quality of Service (QoS), Jumbo Frames Support, Virtual Route Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), VLAN support, sFlow, Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP), Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP), IPv6 support
Compliant Standards	IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u, IEEE 802.3ab, IEEE 802.3ae
Dimensions (W x D x H)	17.3 in x 16 in x 1.7 in
Operating Temperature	0°C to 40 °C
Operating Humidity	10% to 90% (non-condensing)