1st Edition

MPLS for Metropolitan Area Networks

By Nam-Kee Tan Copyright 2005
    446 Pages 121 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    Metro Service Providers are increasingly turning to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) to converge disparate networks and services into a unified core, maintain quality, and deliver additional value-added capabilities. MPLS for Metropolitan Area Networks addresses service providers' challenges by demonstrating solutions provided by MPLS features such as traffic engineering (TE), fast reroute, VPNs, virtual private LAN services (VPLS), and QoS.

    The text opens with an overview of metro networks and MPLS, describing business opportunities and challenges and how mission-critical applications can be deployed within Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs). It then examines traffic engineering issues, focusing on fundamental TE concepts, network control, trunk attributes, constraint-based routing (CBR), Resource Reservation Protocol with TE extensions (RSVP-TE), and resource optimization.

    Following a discussion on how MPLS can bring increased reliability to MANs, the author then concludes the book with a detailed analysis of the service aspect of MANs. Topics reviewed include L3 and L2 MPLS VPNs, geographically dispersed Ethernet multipoint services, virtual private LAN services (VPLS), and the integrated services (IntServ) and differentiated services (DiffServ) QoS models with respect to MPLS.

    The entire book adopts a simplify-and-exemplify approach, containing a series of real-life case studies and using representative topologies as a basis for illustrating the concepts discussed in each chapter. This learning-by-example approach helps you to remember and understand the complex MPLS concepts and technologies. You can then apply what you have learned from these examples and scenarios to your specific networking environments.


    METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORKS AND MPLS
    Requirements of Metropolitan Area Network Services
    Metropolitan Area Network Overview
    The Bandwidth Demand
    The Metro Service Provider's Business Approaches
    The Emerging Metro Customer Expectations and Needs
    Some Prevailing Metro Service Opportunities
    Service Aspects and Requirements

    Roles of MPLS in Metropolitan Area Networks
    MPLS Primer
    MPLS Applications

    TRAFFIC ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORKS
    Traffic Engineering Concepts
    Network Congestion
    Hyper Aggregation Problem
    Easing Congestion
    Network Control
    Tactical versus Strategic Traffic Engineering
    IP/ATM Overlay Model
    MPLS and Traffic Engineering
    MPLS Traffic Engineering Tasks


    Functions of Trunk Attributes
    Traffic Parameters
    Policing Attributes
    Priority Attributes
    Preemption Attributes
    Resilience Attributes
    Generic Path Selection Attributes
    Dynamic Path Management Parameters
    Basic Operations of Traffic Trunks

    Constraint-Based Routing
    MPLS Traffic Engineering Operation
    Limitations of Traditional IGPs
    Resource Attributes
    OSPF Traffic Engineering
    ISIS Traffic Engineering
    Constraint-Based Routing Operation


    Resource Reservation Protocol and Traffic Engineering
    Terminology
    Evolution of RSVP
    RSVP-TE Messages and Objects
    RSVP-TE Path Setup Operation
    Admission Control and Preemption
    Forwarding Traffic across an LSP Tunnel
    Re-optimization and Rerouting
    Scaling RSVP


    Traffic Engineering Metro Area Networks
    Background Information
    Case Study 7.1: Hop-by-Hop Routed LSPs
    Case Study 7.2: Explicitly Routed LSPs (Loose Explicit Route Example)
    Case Study 7.3: Bandwidth Manipulation (CBR Example 1)
    Case Study 7.4: Link Affinity (CBR Example 2)

    RELIABILITY ASPECT OF METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORKS
    Reliability in MPLS Based Metropolitan Area Networks
    Terminology
    Failure Protection Types
    RSVP Extensions for Local Repair
    Head-End Behavior
    Point of Local Repair Behavior
    Notification of Local Repair
    Case Study 8.1: Path Protection
    Case Study 8.2: Fast Reroute with Detour LSPs

    SERVICE ASPECT OF METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORKS
    Layer-3 and Layer-2 MPLS VPNs
    L3 MPLS VPN Overview
    Architectural Components of L3 MPLS VPN
    L3 MPLS VPN Operation
    L2 MPLS VPN Overview
    Martini Point-to-Point Tunneling Approach
    Case Study 9.1: L3 MPLS VPNs with Static Routes and OSPF
    Case Study 9.2: L3 MPLS VPNs with RIPv2 and EBGP
    OSPF and L3 MPLS VPN
    Case Study 9.3: Deploying OSPF on Customer Side without Area 0 (Using Cisco Routers)

    Virtual Private LAN Services
    Multipoint L2 VPN Service
    Service Offerings
    Functional Components of VPLS
    Frame Forwarding
    VPLS versus Martini Point-to-Point L2 VPN Service
    VPLS Implementation
    Scaling LDP-Based VPLS
    Comparison between VPLS and L3 MPLS VPN
    Case Study 10.1: Virtual Leased Line Service
    Case Study 10.2: Virtual Private LAN Services



    QUALITY OF SERVICE ASPECT OF METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORKS
    QoS and MPLS
    The Need for Different Service Classes
    Terminology
    QoS Models for MPLS
    DiffServ and MPLS
    DiffServ-Aware MPLS-TE
    Per-VPN QoS Service Models
    Case Study 11.1: QoS and L2 MPLS VPN
    Case Study 11.2: QoS and L3 MPLS VPN

    Biography

    Nam-Kee Tan