Introduction To MPLS: Technology Tutorials
Introduction To MPLS: Technology Tutorials
Introduction To MPLS: Technology Tutorials
Introduction to MPLS
Technology Tutorials
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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What is MPLS?
Different things to different people One answer
Generic tunneling mechanism Evolving suite of IETF standard/near standard protocols for the Internet backbone Enabling technology for new and converged IP services Integrates packet switching with network layer routing De-couples routing from forwarding in an IP network Works with any routing paradigm Employs a simple forwarding paradigm called label swapping
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Origins
Mid 90s Switch when you can, route when you must Bring L2 performance to L3 (IP)
Switching (L2) Simple table lookup Could be done in hardware at wire speed IP Routing (L3) Longest prefix match algorithm Was performed in software at < wire speed
Make IP networks work more like ATM without the cost and complexity
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MPLS Timeline
IP Routing
ATM Switching
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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MPLS Fundamentals
How it works The Label Switched Path (LSP) Label Switching Router (LSR) functions Traffic assignment Inside the MPLS label
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A FEC identifies a set of IP packets to map to an LSP Packets in the same FEC
Receive the same label from the ingress LSR Are mapped to the same LSP and forwarded over the same path (or sets of paths in the case of multi-path routing)
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FEC (cont.)
FECs are not necessarily new
In conventional IP, a FEC is formed at each router based on Layer 3 lookup Packets with the same longest matching address prefix (based on destination address) are treated in the same way
MPLS offers additional flexibility and granularity for classification of FECs, such as
Same egress router or switch Same longest matching destination address IP prefix Same longest matching destination IP Prefix AND same Type of Service bits Same application flow
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IP packet enters the MPLS domain Ingress LSR (LSR1) assigns a label and forwards the packet to the next hop in the label switched path (LSP) Intermediate LSR (LSR2, LSR3) does a simple lookup, swaps the label, and forwards the packet Egress LSR (LSR4) or Penultimate hop (LS3) removes the label and forwards the packet using based on conventional IP or VPN rules
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MPLS Label
Short fixed length identifier used to designate a FEC Has local significance only Changes from hop to hop For IP, the label is contained in a shim header
For ATM the label is VPI/VCI For Frame Relay the label is DLCI
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Label Stacking
Labels can be ordered hierarchically in a stack Label stacks permit nesting of LSPs
Similar to ATM VPs for aggregating multiple VCs, but MPLS supports arbitrary levels of hierarchy
Can be used to reduce the number of LSPs through the core Only top label is swapped
Packets are forwarded based on the value of the label at the top of the stack Last-in, first-out stack
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MPLS Routing
Topology Determination Path Determination
IGP CSPF Explicit Routing
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Topology Determination
Definition: An MPLS domain is a set of physically connected LSRs (includes LSRs acting as LERs) Routers within an MPLS domain use routing protocols to discover the network topology MPLS IGPs: OSPF-TE and ISIS-TE MPLS EGP: BGP4
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LSP Attributes
Path Definition
Defined at ingress LSR Remote destination (usually loopback address)
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Explicit Routing
Explicitly routed LSPs
Sometimes referred to as Traffic Engineered Tunnels
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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Traffic Engineering
Top-level view
Capacity Planning: placing bandwidth to support traffic Traffic Engineering: placing traffic where there is bandwidth
MPLS ability to arbitrarily segregate flows at whatever level of granularity is desired and to route those flows independently of one another (regardless of source/destination addresses) forms the basis for traffic engineering
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Three types
Inline Online Offline TE performed on a device using local information TE done using global information by a central server connected to the network TE done by a server external to the network using global information
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Why TE?
Bandwidth availability
Infrastructure limitations, lead times
Pipe size granularity issues Class-of-service routing Knobs to tweak under failure scenarios Hedge against traffic issues
Uncertainty, growth, fluctuations
Economics
Especially today
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Traditional IP TE Motivation
Problem: Hyper-aggregation of flows
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Traditional IP TE Cycle
Solution approach: Trial and Error
Classically Unstable
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TE with MPLS
MPLS Tactical LSP Solution
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Routed second 6 8
6 - blocked
12 8
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MPLS TE Validation
Supports network operations in understanding and using expert judgment about the final changes to be implemented Must be supported on two levels:
Summary reports on MPLS configuration adds, deletes, or changes and their impact on design criteria and operational tolerances Ability to directly review and diff configurations for the affected devices
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MPLS TE Deployment
Ability to parse the validated configuration results generated by the system into a form most useful for implementation Issues here are:
Deployment model (matter of operations preference) Granularity, order, chunking Deployment means Direct through device configlets, SNMP, NMS/OSS interfaces
Requires Change Management functions consistent with deployment model and means
Ability to introduce, check point, archive, and back out configuration changes
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Summary: TE Options
Inline (CSPF)
+ Still better than IGP routing + Least overall complexity + No need for external TE system - Non-optimal use of bandwidth - Still need process or mechanism to size LSPs - Vendor interoperability issues?
Online/Offline TE (ERs)
+ Most efficient use of bandwidth + Better protection (SRGs) - Can be operationally complex
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Flat Deployment
Hierarchical Deployment
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Intermission
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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A networks resiliency is the degree to which the network can successfully survive failures
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Configuring restoration mechanisms at all layers can be expensive Need to balance cost and complexity of planning for resiliency with cost and risk of a failure.
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Types of Failures
Link Failures Node Failures Shared Risk Group (SRG) Failures
SRGs are collections of network resources that share the same risk of failure. Examples: Circuits that traverse that same physical fiber span (fiber cut) Devices in the same building (natural disaster) Devices sharing the same power supply (power failure)
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Local protection
Temporary, likely sub-optimal, repair made locally in the neighborhood of the point of failure to keep critical flows up Motivation is speed ~ O(milliseconds) Attempt to keep data in flight until more permanent repair can be made Example: Fast Reroute
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Path Protection
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Protected SRG
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Hybrid strategies
Example protection strategy: Platinum/Real-time traffic (VoIP/Video): FRR Gold/Premium: secondary explicit routes Bronze/Best effort: no protection
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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MPLS-Enabled IP VPNs
Head-to-head with MPLS TE in importance MPLS VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are inherently based on MPLS ability to segregate flows in this case on a per VPN (i.e. per customer) basis from provider edge (PE) to provider edge (PE) Key motivators (analogous to FR/ATM) for MPLS VPNs
Revenue Address space reuse and overall ease of management, security, etc. Ability to address customer service levels (via routing or in combination with QoS mechanisms) and monitor customer traffic Granularity of decisions available under failure conditions
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MPLS-Based VPNs
Motivation for MPLS VPNs MPLS-Based Layer 2 VPNs MPLS-Based Layer 3 VPNs Tradeoffs MPLS-Based Layer 2 versus Layer 3 VPNs
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A single MPLS infrastructure enables traditional (FR, ATM) and new (Ethernet) VPN services over a single Packet-over-SONET (POS) infrastructure
Network consolidation for SPs offering private data and IP services New revenue opportunity for IP services only providers
Simplify provisioning
Signaling and label stacking Touch only edge devices
Scalability
Core switches aggregate MPLS tunnels (label stacked) and thus manages fewer connections
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MPLS defines the label distribution and encapsulation FR PDU (including header, FECN and BECN bits, ) transported in their entirety edge to edge FR DE bit mapped to MPLS EXP values
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MPLS defines the label distribution and encapsulation AAL5 and ATM cell transport modes are supported
AAL5 mode reassembles ATM PDUs from a VC into a packet Cell mode transports each ATM cell as a packet
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MPLS defines the label distribution and encapsulation Ethernet frame is transported VLAN tags are transported Priority to EXP field mapping
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Differences
VPN membership information distributed automatically via BGP VPN sites can be added with little provisioning BGP permits Service Provider to inter-work unlike media (e.g., ATM and FR) in a scalable fashion over MPLS Extended service offerings
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Draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-ldp-01.txt
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Services enabled
IP VPNs to enterprise customers Inter-provider VPNs hook two VPNs together across providers Carrier-of-carrier services IP transport to retail ISPs BGP/MPLS VPN across carrier core only IP transport to SP itself providing L2/L3 services BGP/MPLS VPN across the network of SP and carrier
Mature technology
Large-scale deployments Hardware optimized for scalability in excess of 1000 VPNs per PE Mature provisioning/management software
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IP
IP
2547 L2
MPLS L1 MPLS
CE PE 1) Receive IP and send IP datagram to PE via ATM, FR, Ethernet, etc. 2) Add RFC 2547 Header Label for VPN ID. Add MPLS tunnel; label and send to MPLS network.
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IP
2547 L2
MPLS L1 MPLS IP PE
3) Pop MPLS tunnel label. 4) Pop VPN label and send to CE.
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CE 1 PE 1 P
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VRF Blue
CE 2
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CE CE
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Negatives:
Point-to-point focus (Martini/Kompella) Scalability (VPLS) Not as flexible in terms of service opportunities
Negatives:
Not transparent - migration requires effort Customer must peer with provider CE device must be a router Some customers strongly object to this invasion of privacy
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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Advanced Topics
Implementing QoS in MPLS IP Routing Interactions IGP Interactions Load Balancing Status of MPLS Whos working on MPLS
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IP Routing Interactions
In an operational network, routing can be configured in a number of ways so that flows are routed using LSPs
BGP ingress/egress mode Flows entering the network at an AS boundary can have their BGP next hop set to point to an LSP Mechanism used for L3 MPLS VPNs IGP Shortcut LSP Examples are Ciscos Autoroute and Juniper IGP Shortcuts Visible at head-end LER only After IGP routing has computed the shortest path tree, a post processing step is used to replace IGP next hops with shortcut LSP paths Forwarding Adjacency LSPs Directly used in the IGP shortest path computation as layer-3 adjacencies More predictable and intuitive than shortcuts Results in N2 adjacencies in an LSP mesh
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IGP Interactions
IGPs often support equal-weight split path routing at each hop along the IGP path to a destination
The number of splits per hop is small typically four, but it is configurable The number of splits compounds geometrically hop-to-hop (4x4x4, ) This creates de-facto load balancing under the best of circumstances Can also create congestion where the equal-weight paths (IGP link weights are configured) do not reflect the link capacities along the paths
MPLS deployment disables IGP split pathing MPLS can be configured similarly to provide split path routing along parallel LSPs
Splitting is proportional to LSP bandwidth Splitting occurs only once at the ingress of the parallel LSPs
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Load Balancing
There are two categories of load balancing in MPLS
Path selection When multiple equal cost paths to egress are available, CSPF can use tie breaking rules to select the one to use: Random randomly select a path to use Least-fill prefer the path with the largest minimum available bandwidth ratio Most-fill prefer the path with the smallest minimum available bandwidth ratio where available bandwidth ratio = (avail bw on link)/(max reservable bw on link) Balancing traffic over multiple LSPs Per-prefix (IP addr/netmask) keeps individual flows on one route Per-packet can split individual flows over multiple LSPs in proportion to the bandwidth of the LSPs
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Status of MPLS
Lots of excitement Hundreds of deployments worldwide
Cisco reported >200 deployments in 2003 Almost all providers offing some form of MPLS VPN service Most are doing TE within their core
Interoperability labs
University of New Hampshire's InterOperability Lab Isocore Internetworking Lab
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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MPLS VPNs
L2 (Martini, Kompella, VPLS) & L3 (RFC 2547) Graphical provisioning wizard Views to study logical VPN topology
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Agenda
Introduction MPLS Fundamentals MPLS Applications
Traffic Engineering Resiliency and restoration MPLS-based VPNs
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References
Books
MPLS Technologies and Applications (Bruce Davie and Yakov Rekhter, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000) Advanced MPLS Design and Implementation (Vivek Alwayn, ciscopress.com, 2002) MPLS and VPN Architectures (Ivan Pepelnjak and Jim Guichard, ciscopress.com, 2001)
Many vendors have literature posted on their websites RFC and Internet draft documents
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/mpls-charter.html
MPLS Forum
http://www.mplsforum.org
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Take-Away Points
Main Concepts
Separates control and data plane Supports multiple routing paradigms Simple forwarding paradigm (label swapping)
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