Question

In many countries, the core network is being converted to – or has been converted to – a socalled ‘all-IP’ network. In this regard, the multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), is used which is a hybrid of the previous non-IP (but packet-based) core and an IP core. In this context, answer the following questions:

a) Mention and discuss four benefits of MPLS.

b) Why the traffic engineering is especially significant in core network?

c) What benefit would there be in having multiple tunnels joining the same two points on the edge of an MPLS network?

Answer 1

Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique which forwards data from one node to another using labels. It speed up traffic flow by avoiding complex lookups . It uses short path labels for forwarding data . It is used to speed up traffic flow in Enterprise and service provider network.

a) Some of the benefits of MPLS are:-

1. Hide network compelexity- It is configured to act like a long hop between two nodes hiding the hops in between thus hiding network complexity
2. Traffic routing - In MPLS, a packet is routed through client's end to Service provider end by using labels rather than performing complex lookups and forward the data with the use of these labels in a pre determined path
3. Built-in support for Quality of Service (QoS)
4. Lower cost

b) Traffic engineering is a method of optimizing communication network by dynamically analyzing and regulating the behaviour of data sent over the network.

Traffic engineering helps to distribute bandwidth load across network links. Also, traffic engineering helps to achieve high QoS in core Network.

it is significant to use traffic engineering to speed up transmission as well as avoiding loops.

As in some cases of unequal load sharing, when there are hops in between the two nodes ,a loop can occur because you can't guarantee the hops in between are as intelligent as you want to be .In these scenarios, certain amount of data will always be sent back ( according to configured load balancing) and got stuck in a loop .This can be tackled by using traffic engineering

By usage of a label associated with data (MPLS) ,the hops in between will know what to do with a packet and how to do it therefore avoiding loop.

c) This is done for the purpose of load sharing.