This article reviews the key differences between traditional IP routing and the emerging MPLS approach, and identifies where MPLS adds value to IP networking. In various corners of the industry MPLS has been held up as the solution to IP QoS, gigabit forwarding, network scaling, and traffic engineering. Each of these expectations is critically considered in the light of developments in conventi...

This document specifies how Label Edge Routers (LERs) should behave when determining whether to MPLS encapsulate an IPv4 packet with header options. Lack of a formal standard has resulted in different LER forwarding behaviors for IPv4 packets with header options despite being associated with a prefix-based Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC). IPv4 option packets that belong to a prefix-based FEC...

Currently we see a discussion on the transition from ATM-based transport to IP transport in the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). Issues that result from the transition to IP are QoS, esp. delay, jitter, loss, bandwidth guaranties and in sequence delivery of packets for voice traffic. The paper compares two solutions for future UTRANs, native IP multi-path transport and MPLS (Multi...

In this paper1, we present a new approach to construct multicast trees in MPLS networks. This approach utilizes MPLS LSPs between multicast tree branching node routers in order to reduce forwarding states and enhance scalability. In our approach only routers that are acting as multicast tree branching node for a group need to keep forwarding state for that group. All other non-branching node ro...

This paper presents some experiences with Class of Service (CoS) translation in IP and MPLS based networks. IP provides CoS in the form of eight priority classes that can be used to distinguish between a variety of traffic types. Since most of the layer-2 technologies provide support for strict QoS, an appropriate translation from the coarse grained IP CoS to the finegrained layer-2 QoS is fund...

The 4th Generation wireless networks are expected to become the access network technology of preference and be fully connected to the Global IP core network. Meanwhile, Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) are typically formed on a temporary basis, to serve some urgent communication needs or extend communications in hot spots that are beyond the transmission range of cellular infrastructures. MANETs ...

In this paper, we present an all-MPLS approach for UMTS 3G core networks. GTP-tunnel has been defined by 3GPP as the transport mechanism for UMTS. For each packet transmission, extra GTP, UDP, and IP headers (40-byte) are required. For short packets, such as VoIP payloads, transmission overhead is very high. Enhanced-GTP was proposed to eliminate the need for a GTP header. Since its operation m...

This paper proposes a management of DiffServ-over-MPLS transit network with BFD(Bidirectional Forwarding Detection)/OAM (operation, administration and maintenance) in ForCES (Forwarding and Control Element Separation) architecture for QoS-guaranteed DiffServ-over-MPLS traffic engineering. The proposed BFD and ForCES functions are implemented on Intel 2400 network processor, where BFD/OAM packet...

Increasing number of Internet users forced them to use popular services, television and telephone, to use the Internet as a medium to reach their customers. Organizations are now applying VoIP and MPLS for providing the convergence of voice and data communications over single network infrastructure. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) usage all over their branches, this reduces a huge amount of...

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is an evolving network technology that has been used to provide Traffic Engineering and high speed networking. There has been current demand on Internet Service Providers, which support MPLS technology, to provide Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees and security. Fault tolerance is an important QoS factor that needs to be considered to maintain network surv...