EVPN/VXLAN – Flood and Learn Mechanism

bgpvxlan

With the original VXLAN spec (RFC) there was no control plane.
But Flood and Learn was used via either IR or multicast head-end replication.
EVPN was then introduced as the control plane.

My question is in an environment with IP Multicast, VXLAN and EVPN configuration, in what circumstances would it use head-end replication (IP Multicast). Is this just used for BUM traffic?

Best Answer

VTEPs still need to know where traffic belongs. In simple terms, EVPN is "front loading" the MAC-destination tables. If a host is not already known (via EVPN, other vendor proprietary means, or previous multicast discovery), the VTEP will still attempt multicast discovery.