VeloCloud Guides
Design and field notes from working with Arista SD-WAN (formerly VeloCloud). Spoke and hub topologies, Enhanced HA wiring, underlay choices, and routing-protocol integration on the LAN side.
Posts
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VeloCloud SD-WAN and Partner Gateways Part 1: MPLS-Only Site Architecture
A deep dive into how VeloCloud SD-WAN connects MPLS-only branch sites via Partner Gateways — covering the NNI, underlay BGP peering, and why MPLS-only edges present a unique onboarding challenge.
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Arista (VMware) SD-WAN Deep Dive — Part 1: Components, Gateways, and the Three Planes
First post in a five-part deep dive on Arista (VMware) SD-WAN. We start with the components — Edges, Cloud Gateways, Partner Gateways, Orchestrator, Controller — and the three planes that bind them. Sets up a UK ISP scenario that the rest of the series will pick apart.
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VeloCloud SD-WAN and Partner Gateways Part 2: Onboarding an MPLS-Only Edge
A step-by-step walkthrough of how an MPLS-only VeloCloud Edge activates using a temporary internet path injected into the MPLS VRF, what changes once the VCMP tunnels are up, and how the production routing state differs from the onboarding state.
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Arista (VMware) SD-WAN Deep Dive — Part 2: Routing — Overlay, Underlay, BGP, and the Gateway as Route Reflector
Part 2 of five. How prefixes get into the overlay, how the Gateway redistributes them, the three Cloud VPN modes, BGP at the Edge and the Partner Gateway, and the route-selection logic that decides which underlay a flow ends up on.
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VeloCloud SD-WAN and Partner Gateways Part 3: Taming the Default Route at the NNI
Why a 0/0 leaking from the MPLS underlay into a VeloCloud Partner Gateway is dangerous, how to filter it at the NNI, and the VeloCloud best practice approach to default route handling — with BGP policy examples.
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Arista (VMware) SD-WAN Deep Dive — Part 3: The Data Plane — VCMP, DMPO, and Per-Flow Steering
Part 3 of five. Wire-level look at VCMP encapsulation, the DMPO measurement loop, Business Policy and per-flow steering, and the on-path remediation (FEC, duplication, jitter buffer) that lets the overlay tolerate underlays that misbehave.
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Arista (VMware) SD-WAN Deep Dive — Part 4: Topology Walkthroughs — MPLS-only meets Internet-only Across Continents
Part 4 of five. The GlobalCo packet-flow walkthroughs — Newcastle to HQ, Bristol to HQ, Chicago to a UK Cloud Gateway (why it fails), and the headline: MPLS-only Chicago talking to Internet-only Shanghai via a Partner Gateway, hop by hop.
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Arista (VMware) SD-WAN Deep Dive — Part 5: Best Practice, Failure Modes, and a Design Checklist
Part 5 of five. Gateway design rules, Partner Gateway sizing, segmentation, security service insertion, MTU, the failure modes that catch teams the first time, and a one-page design checklist for an Arista (VMware) SD-WAN rollout.
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Designing an Arista SD-WAN Spoke with Enhanced HA, Dual DIA, and OSPF
Building a resilient Arista (formerly VeloCloud) SD-WAN spoke: two Edges in Enhanced HA, two DIA circuits wired the optimal way, a multi-VLAN LAN, OSPF for route exchange, and the caveats that bite in practice.