BGP-Free Network Core with SRv6 « ipSpace.net blog

The concept of a BGP-free core is decades old: The network core routers (P routers in MPLS terminology) do not carry BGP routes; BGP routes are exchanged solely between network edge routers. The core routers thus cannot use the customer IP addresses in the packet forwarding process. The edge routers (PE routers in MPLS terminology) know how to reach BGP next hops using an encapsulation mechanism that makes IP packets opaque to the network core. Interestingly, the concept predates Cisco’s Tag Switching (later MPLS) by at least a decade; that’s how all ATM and Frame Relay networks worked (with ATM VPI/VCI or Frame Relay DLCI used as the in-network addresses).

Source: https://blog.ipspace.net/2026/10/srv6-bgp-free-core. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.