# Route Distinguisher and Route Target

> Route Distinguisher (RD) adds unique prefixes to customer addresses for VRF differentiation, while Route Targets control BGP routing information exchange between instances.

# Route Distinguisher and Route Target

## Route Distinguisher

A Route Distinguisher is a unique prefix added to a customer's destination address to distinguish advertisements that might otherwise look the same. For example, overlapping VRF subnets can be distinguished by unique route distinguishers.

An RD is a 64-bit (8-byte) integer and is split into three parts:

- Type (always 2 bytes).
- Administrator subfield.
- Value or service-provider subfield.

Currently, three format types are defined.

| **2 bytes**   |            |              |
|:--|:--|:--|
| **Type 0**    | 2-byte ASN | 4-byte value |
| **Type 1**    | 4-byte IP  | 2-byte value |
| **Type 2**    | 4-byte ASN | 2-byte value |

## Route Targets

A Route Target is a BGP extended community that controls the import and export of routing information between routing instances.