Virtual Routers (VRs)

Coming from a ScreenOS background I have always been taught and tried to instil on engineers I work with, the use of mutliple VRs. Where possible and dependant on the hardware, I look to configure VRs for each separate WAN interface and dependant on the requirements of the client I look to split the LAN interfaces as well.


There are many benefits for using multiple VRs:

• creates more secure routing tables that are simpler to administer
• allows you to use overlapping ip subnets or networks
• allows you to run multiple OSPF areas on one device
• is (obviously) more safe when dealing with multiple ISP's and dynamic routing
• allows you to set different protocol preferences per vrouter