Create a High-Bandwidth Connection to a Headquarters or Data Center Location
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Create a High-Bandwidth Connection to a Headquarters or Data Center Location

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Create a High-Bandwidth Connection to a Headquarters or Data Center Location

Create a high-bandwidth service connection to an HQ or data center location.
To configure multiple service connections to a single headquarters or data center location, complete the following steps.
The steps in this section use a deployment example as shown in the following diagram. In this example, the London headquarters location connects to two different service connections (London 1 and London 2) using two different IPSec tunnels that are terminated on two different customer premises equipment (CPE) interfaces (tunnel.1 and tunnel.2).
This example, and the steps in this section, use a next-generation firewall to terminate the service connections on the CPE; however, you can use any CPE that supports symmetric routing and PBF or policy-based routing as the CPE.
Use these steps for guidance; each use case could require additional design and planning that are beyond the scope of this document.
  1. Before you deploy multiple service connections from a single Prisma Access location to a single site, make sure that your network has the following prerequisites:
    • You must divide the subnets in the headquarters or data center location and advertise a unique subnet on each service connection.
    • Your customer premises equipment (CPE) must support, and you must be able to configure, the following networking features:
      • Policy-based forwarding (PBF) or policy-based routing—Your CPE must be able to selectively pick a specific path for a specific local source IP address and subnet.
      • Symmetric return—You must be able to configure your CPE to ensure symmetric traffic flows to and from a specific IP address and subnet, and configure symmetric return for failover tunnels if one of the tunnels goes down.
  2. Create the service connections and establish connectivity for the IPSec tunnels used for the service connections.
    1. On the Panorama that manages Prisma Access, Create a service connection, including creating a new IPSec Tunnel configuration, IKE Gateway, IPSec Crypto Profile, and Tunnel Monitoring settings.
      Prisma Access offers predefined IPSec templates that you can use to simplify the IPSec tunnel creation process.
    2. Find the IP address to use as the remote side of the IPSec tunnel from your CPE to Prisma Access by selecting
      Panorama
      Cloud Services
      Status
      Network Details
      , clicking the
      Service Connection
      radio button, and noting the
      Service IP Address
      for the site.
    3. On your CPE, create an IPSec tunnel to the service connections
      1. Verify that the IKE and IPSec tunnels use the same cryptographic profiles for authentication and encryption between the peers.
      2. Use the
        Service IP Address
        as the peer address for the tunnel.
      If you use a next-generation firewall as the CPE, select
      Network
      IPSec Tunnels
      and create two tunnels for the service connections (
      tunnel.1
      and
      tunnnel.2
      in the following screenshot).
  3. Create virtual router settings for the CPE.
    You create BGP routing instances that advertise one subnet on one tunnel and the other subnet on another tunnel, which ensures load balancing on the two active tunnels.
    If you are using a next-generation firewall as the CPE, select
    Network
    Virtual Routers
    ,
    Add
    virtual router settings, then
    Add
    a
    BGP
    Peer Group
    for each tunnel, specifying the following settings:
    • Specify a
      Router ID
      and
      AS Number
      of the CPE router (10.177.177.20 and 65517, respectively, in this example).
    • Specify the
      EBGP Router
      address of the service connections (
      Panorama
      Cloud Services
      Status
      Network Details
      Service Connection
      EBGP Router
      ) as the
      Peer Address
      for the service connections (10.0.2.12 for Service Connection 1 and 10.0.2.6 for Service Connection 2 in this example).
    • For the
      Local Address
      , you can specify the loopback address of the CPE (192.168.177.20 in this example).
  4. Create a summarized subnet for the IP addresses used for both tunnels.
    Providing a summarized subnet guarantees redundancy. When both tunnels are up, the traffic uses the most specific routes to reach their destination; for example, 192.168.171.0/24 uses tunnel.1 to reach its destination. Adding a summarized subnet that covers all advertised subnets (192.168.168.0/21 in this example) ensures that traffic from 192.168.171.0/24 is reachable from tunnel.2 if tunnel.1 goes down and traffic from 192.168.172.0/24 is reachable from tunnel.1 if tunnel.2 goes down.
    If you are using a next-generation firewall as the CPE, complete the following steps.
    1. Continue to modify the virtual router profile and
      Add
      route aggregation parameters (
      Network
      Virtual Routers
      BGP
      Aggregate
      ).
    2. Enter summary subnets for the subnets you are advertising for the service connections.
      In this example, enter a
      Prefix
      of
      192.168.168.0/21
      , which summarizes the two data center subnets.
    3. Enter
      Export
      settings to ensure that the tunnels advertise the correct subnets.
      In this example, you specify an
      Action
      of
      deny
      and
      allow
      for the subnets so that the first subnet (192.168.171.0/24) is reachable from tunnel.1 and the second subnet (192.168.172.0/24) is reachable from tunnel.2.
  5. (Deployments with more than two service connections only)
    If you require more than two service connections to connect the users to private resources for more than 2 Gbps bandwidth, add AS-PATH prepends for the exported routes so that the service connections use symmetric routing to and from the data center in the event of a failover. See Configure More than Two Service Connections to a Headquarters or Data Center Location for details.
  6. To ensure symmetric return (to make sure that traffic from 192.168.171.0/24 always uses tunnel.1 and traffic from 192.168.172.0 always uses tunnel.2), enter PBF or policy-based routing rules.
    By default, BGP installs routes in the routing table for all different destinations regardless of the preferred tunnel. The following screenshot shows that BGP advertises all destinations from the 192.168.168.0/21 subnet for tunnel.2, which might cause asymmetric routing for traffic from 192.168.171.0/24.
    To ensure symmetric routing, configure a set of PBF or route-based forwarding rules. If you are using a next-generation firewall as the CPE, complete the following steps.
    1. Select
      Policies
      Policy Based Forwarding
      and
      Add
      a PBF policy rule.
    2. Select
      Source
      and
      Add
      a
      Source Address
      to use for the PBF.
      In this case, you want to create a PBF for tunnel.1, so you enter the 192.168.171.0/24 subnet.
    3. Select
      Destination/Application/Service
      and select
      Any
      Destination Address and
      Any
      application.
    4. Select
      Forwarding
      and specify the following parameters; then, click
      OK
      :
      • Select an
        Action
        of
        Forward
        .
      • Select an
        Egress Interface
        of the tunnel to which you want to forward the IP subnet (
        tunnel.1
        in this case).
      • Select
        Monitor
        and select the following monitoring profiles:
        • Select a
          Profile
          of
          default
          .
        • Select
          Disable this rule if nexthop/monitor ip is unreachable
          .
        • Specify an
          IP Address
          of the service connection’s
          EBGP Router
          address (
          Panorama
          Cloud Services
          Status
          Network Details
          Service Connection
          EBGP Router
          ).
        Enabling monitoring and selecting the EBGP router address of the service connection ensures that, if tunnel.1 goes down, the firewall disables the PBF policy and routes the traffic on the tunnel that is still up (tunnel.2).
    5. Repeat Step 6, substituting the
      EBGP Router
      address of Service Connection 1 with the
      EBGP Router
      address of Service Connection 2 and the subnet of tunnel.1 with the subnet of tunnel.2.
      When complete, you have two PBF policies, one for tunnel.1 and one for tunnel.2.
  7. Select
    Network
    Virtual Routers
    Static Routes
    and assign the
    EBGP Router
    address of Service Connection 1 to the
    Interface
    of
    tunnel.1
    ; then, assign the
    EBGP Router
    address of Service Connection 2 to the
    Interface
    of
    tunnel.2
    Entering specific static routes for each of the router BGP addresses ensures that tunnel monitoring functions correctly, because the EBGP Router IP address of Service Connection 1 is reachable only by tunnel.1 and the EBGP Router IP address of Service Connection 2 is reachable only by tunnel.2.

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