Data and Computer

Communications

Tenth Edition
by William Stallings

Data and Computer Communications, Tenth

Edition by William Stallings, (c) Pearson
Education - Prentice Hall, 2013
 CHAPTER 23

Multiprotocol Label Switching

"No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very
singular. According to my experience it is not
possible to reach the platform of a Metropolitan
train without exhibiting one's ticket.”

—The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
 Role of MPLS
 Efficienttechnique for forwarding and
routing packets
 Designed with IP networks in mind
• Can be used with any link-level protocol
 Fixed-length label encapsulates an IP
packet or a data link frame
 MPLS label contains all information
needed to perform routing, delivery, QoS,
and traffic management functions
 Is connection oriented
 MPLS Growth
 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the
lead organization in developing MPLS-related
specifications and standards
 Deployed in almost every major IP network
 Reasons MPLS is accepted:
 Background of MPLS
 IPswitching (Ipsilon)
 Tag switching (Cisco Systems)
 Aggregate route-based IP switching (IBM)
 Cascade (IP navigator)
 IETF set up the MPLS working group (1997)
 First set of proposed standards (2001)
 Key specification is RFC 3031
 Connection-Oriented
QoS Support
 Connectionless networks cannot provide
firm QoS commitments
 Has powerful traffic management and QoS
capabilities
 MPLS imposes framework on an IP-based
Internet
 Provides the foundation for sophisticated
and reliable QoS traffic contracts
 Traffic Engineering
 Ability to define routes dynamically, plan
resource commitments on the basis of known
demand, and optimize network utilization
 Effective use can substantially increase usable
network capacity
 ATM provided strong traffic engineering
capabilities prior to MPLS
 With basic IP there is a primitive form
MPLS Support
 Table
23.1

Key
MPLS
Terms

(Table is on page 755

in textbook)
 MPLS Operation
 Label switching routers (LSRs)
• Nodes capable of switching and routing packets on
the basis of label
 Labels define a flow of packets between
two endpoints
 Assignment of a particular packet is done
when the packet enters the network of
MPLS routers
 Connection-oriented technology
 Label Assignment

 Based on:
 Label Stacking
 One of the most powerful features of MPLS
 Processing is always based on the top label
 At any LSR a label may be removed or added
 Allows creation of tunnels
 Tunnel refers to traffic routing being determined
by labels
 Provides considerable flexibility UNLIMITED
 Unlimited stacking
STACKING
 Traffic Class (TC)
 RFCs 3270 and 5129
 No unique definition of the TC bits has
been standardized
 DS:
 Assign a unique label value to each DS per-
hop-behavior scheduling class
 Map the drop precedence into the TC field
 ECN:
 Three possible ECN values are mapped into
the TC field
 Time to Live Field (TTL)
 Key field in the IP packet header
 Decremented at each router and packet is
dropped if the count falls to zero
• Done to avoid looping
• Having the packet remain too long in the Internet
due to faulty routing
 Included in the label so that the TTL
function is still supported
FECs, LSPs, and Labels
 LSP Topology
 Unique ingress and egress LSR
 Single path through the MPLS domain is
needed
 Unique egress LSR, multiple ingress LSRs
 Traffic assigned to a single FEC can arise from
different sources that enter the network at
different ingress LSRs
 Multiple egress LSRs for unicast traffic
 RFC 3031
 Multicast
 RFC 5332
 Route Selection
 Refers to the selection of an LSP for a
particular FEC
 Supports two options:
 Hop-by-hop routing
• Each LSR independently chooses the next hop for
each FEC
• Does not readily support traffic engineering or
policy routing
 Explicit routing
• A single LSR specifies some or all of the LSRs
• Can be set up ahead of time or dynamically
 Requirements for Label
Distribution
 Each LSR on the LSP must do the following:
 Assign a label to the LSP to be used to recognize
incoming packets that belong to the corresponding
FEC
 Inform all potential upstream nodes of the label
assigned by this LSR to this FEC, so that these nodes
can properly label packets to be sent to this LSR
 Learn the next hop for this LSP and learn the label
that the downstream node has assigned to this FEC;
this will enable this LSR to map an incoming label to
an outgoing label
 Label Distribution
 Label distribution protocol enables two LSRs to
learn each other’s MPLS capabilities
 RFC 3031 refers to a new label distribution
protocol and to enhancements of existing
protocols
 Label Distribution Protocol
 Protocolsthat communicate which label
goes with which Forwarding Equivalence
Class (FEC)
 Label Distribution Protocol (LDP; RFC 5036)
 Resource Reservation Protocol – Traffic
Engineering (RSVP-TE; RFC 3209)
 Multiprotocol BGP as extended for Layer 3
VPNs (L3VPNs; RFC 4364)
 Once a route is established LDP is used
to establish the LSP and assign labels
 LDP Messages
 Discovery
 Each LSR announces and maintains its presence in a
network
• Hello messages
 Session establishment and maintenance
 LDP peers
 Advertisement
 Create, change, and delete label mappings for FECs
 Notification messages
 Provide advisory information and to signal error
information
 Traffic Engineering
 RFC 2702
 Allocate traffic to the network to maximize
utilization of the network capacity
 Ensure the most desirable route through the
network while meeting QoS requirements
 Elements of MPLS Traffic
Engineering (MPLS TE)
 Information distribution
 A link state protocol is necessary to discover the topology
of the network
 Path calculation
 Shortest path through a network that meets the resource
requirements of the traffic flow
 Path setup
 Signaling protocol to reserve the resources for a traffic
flow and to establish the LSP
 Traffic forwarding
 Accomplished with MPLS using the LSP
 Virtual Private Network (VPN)
 Private network
configured within a
public network in order
to take advantage of
management facilities
of larger networks

 Trafficdesignated as
VPN traffic can only go
from a VPN source to
a destination in the
same VPN
 Table
23.2
VPN
Terminology
 Layer 3 VPN
 Based on VPN routes between CEs based
on IP addresses
 CE implements IP and is thus a router
 CE routers advertise network to provider
 Provider uses an enhanced version of
BGP to establish VPNs between CEs
 MPLS tools establish routes
 Summary
 The role of MPLS  Label distribution
 Background  Requirements
 Connection-oriented QoS  Protocol
support  LDP messages
 Traffic engineering  LDP message format
 VPN support  Traffic engineering
 Multiprotocol support  Elements of MPLS traffic
 MPLS operation engineering
 Labels  Constrained shortest-path first
 Label stacking algorithm
 Label format
 RSVP-TE
 Label placement  VPNs
 FECs, LSPs, and labels  Layer 2 VPN
 Route selection
 Layer 3 VPN