This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

Design of Traffic Engineered MPLS VPN for

Protected Traffic using GNS Simulator
Snehal Yadav and Amutha Jeyakumar
Department of Electrical Engineering
Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai 400039, India
[email protected], [email protected]

AbstractMultiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS) lends protecting its path in case of any failover [4]. This helps the
efficiency to very large networks, and is the most used transport service provider to provide a guaranteed service to its
technology for service provider networks to support multiple customers. MPLS thus can provide multiple services at the
customers. Customers connected to a service providers network same instant in the same network, justifying its importance in
demand for secure, reliable, private and ultra fast connections
todays networking generation.
over the globe. This paper describes designing of MPLS
VPN(Virtual Private Network) along with dedicated traffic MPLS enabled networks are designed for various
tunneling for each VPN with the help of OSPF(Open Shortest customers and their various scenarios depending upon the
Path First) and MP-BGP(Multi Protocol-Border Gateway customers demands in the same network infrastructure. A
Protocol) which helps in keeping the customers isolated, network transparent tunnel can be created between the end points of the
manageable and reliable. It also includes path protection, mainly network depending upon the class of traffic. All these
link and node protection in the MPLS network for failover configurations are done on the service providers end and thus
functionality along with features like route reflectors for better the customer does not have to worry about the routing required
efficiency. GNS(Graphical Network Simulator) software stack or deployment of extra resources.
with VMware virtualization were chosen for this purpose, as
these applications are well suited for emulation of real network
The designed network in this paper connects customers
environment. The resultant network obtained after this design is from its headquarters to its various sites throughout the world
a real time solution to many problems and demands in todays using a private connection enabled with traffic tunneling. These
service providers network. private communications are carried by MPLS VPN using
features like Route Distinguisher(RD) and Route Target(RT).
Index Terms MPLS, MPLS Traffic Engineering, MPLS MP-BGP [5] is used to carry these large databases throughout
Virtual Private Network, routing protocols, route reflectors, link the network along with Route Reflectors that will allow the
protection, node protection. IBGP(Internal Border Gateway Protocol) neighbors to learn all
the paths of the network. Every VPN is allotted a different
I. INTRODUCTION tunnel path so that complete privacy and security can be
achieved for every customer. Path protection mechanisms like
There has been an exponential growth in the tele-
Fast Reroute(FRR) are used for faster recovery in case of a
communication sector throughout the world in the past few
failure. Link and node protection is given to the links and nodes
years, which has led to an incredibly huge amount of traffic
that carry higher importance in the network. All these features
being sent from one location to another with different
included in the MPLS network leads to an highly efficient
requirements and choices of services. MPLS has proved to be
network that can be used in real-time scenarios.
a promising solution that provides different features in the
This paper is organized as follows: Section II illustrates the
same network of the service provider, thus replacing many
previous work done in the MPLS domain. Section III
transport technologies. One of the most exceptional feature of
elaborates the proposed designing for a multiple customer
MPLS is Traffic Engineering(TE) [1] that allows a service
MPLS network, whereas Section IV deals with the analysis of
provider to optimize the traffic flow and links utilization as it
simulation results. The final section summarizes the paper.
would be demanded of a service providers network. It gives a
substantial amount of control in the hands of the service II. PREVIOUS WORK
provider regarding the optimal utilization of the available
Earlier, if the customers were willing to setup a private link
resources[2].
between their various offices they would request the service
There are many reasons why deployment of MPLS has
provider for a separate link which was a costly investment.
become so popular. The most significant of them is the
Also, the customers could not use the same private IP addresses
concept of VPN [3] which segregates the traffic according to
the criteria set by the customers, making the connection secure while connecting to the service provider network as the service
and private. It can be used to establish private connections provider could not distinguish between the various customers.
When MPLS VPN started getting implemented [6] ,it enabled
between different sites of the same customers that might be
the service provider to lease private links to the customer on
present at different locations. MPLS also has the capability of

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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

the same network without any additional links to be installed. B. Design scenario of a sample network
Also the VRF(Virtual Routing and Forwarding) feature in VPN The goal of the proposed sample network as shown below
now allows the customers to even use the same IP addresses. in Fig. 1, is to show how the features of MPLS VPN can be
Traffic engineering implementation [7] further made combined with traffic engineering and path protection to satisfy
optimal utilization of all the links present in the network, certain given constraints by customers. The sample network
reducing the load from over utilized links. Thus parameters like has three different companies : Customer A, B and C, and these
packet loss, jitter and delay are improved in MPLS enabled three companies have their headquarters and sites at different
network. Path protection and restoration is a key element in locations throughout the globe. This sample network insists on
MPLS networks. Providers sell their services to customers. the following constraints:
This service delivery is concluded by a contract where certain x C1: Customer A should be able to communicate among
SLAs are specified. In order to provide reliable service its headquarters and sites. Similarly customer B and C
delivery, the network is to be made immune to different kind should be able to communicate amongst their own
of network outages and instability. This can be achieved by headquarters and sites.
using Fast Reroute specification for link protection and Record x C2:Customer As headquarter should be able to
Route Object for node protection. communicate with customer Bs and Cs headquarters
III. DESCRIPTION OF PROPOSED NETWORK only and not their site locations. Similarly for customer
B and C.
A. Motivation x C3:All the customers belong to different Autonomous
At the present time, the customers not only want to have Systems.
private connections with their own sites but also some other x C4:Minimum number of links should be utilized for
constraints involved along with it like communication with communication between these companies and their
between various other company headquarters also in the same sites by the service provider.
link. This leads to a complex VPN structure where some x C5:Every customer should be allotted a separate tunnel
connections are to made absolutely secure whereas some for communication between its own centers.
should be interconnected with others and all this should be x C6:Path protection should be enabled for the network
managed in the same link leased by the customer from the for guaranteed services.
service provider.
C. Proposed Solution
Also, the company customers do not like to share their links
with other customers, to maintain the required privacy and The proposed solution satisfying these constraints can be
security. Sharing of links can also lead to unwanted traffic of shown via emulators like GNS(Graphical Network Simulator)
others on the links which could lead to packet loss of their own which is applicable for real-time scenarios. The steps for
traffic, thus reducing the Quality of Services(QoS). designing this network can be shown as below:
Consequently, it is preferred to use a personal link for every x S1:Layer 3 MPLS VPNs
customer. When more than one customer is connected to a

Fig. 1: MPLS enabled sample network

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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

network it is very important to keep their routing IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

information separate. Virtual Routing and Forwarding The sample scenario was implemented in GNS3 and the
(VRF) instance is used for every customer in the following results were obtained which are satisfying all the
network to achieve this. criteria mentioned resulting in a better service provider network
The Route-Distinguisher (RD) and Route-Target (RT) with many real-time features included.
are two different concepts that are both used in an
MPLS VPN. The RD is used to keep all prefixes in the A. Layer 3 MPLS VPNs
BGP table unique, and the RT is used to transfer routes Different VRFs are created for every customer location.
between VRFs/VPNS. Figure 2 shows the VRF implemented on PE2 router which is
x S2: Multi-protocol BGP connected to customer A and C Headquarters. Two VRFs are
Multi-protocol BGP which allows multiple address created for each with RTs and RDs of the connections that are
families to be transferred across the network in parallel required between these headquarters and their sites. Similar
should be used for the exchange of customers routing configurations is to be done on all the Provider Edge(PE)
information. routers.
BGP is designed to be the protocol operating across
multiple Autonomous Systems (AS) and is more
suitable for distributing very large amount of routing
information along with label distribution for MPLS.
This information helps in supporting multiple
customers.
x S3:Route Reflector (RR)
The architecture of BGP for the internal neighbor ship
requires full-mesh of connections between all
PEs(Provider Edge). RR can be used in order to reduce
this amount of iBGP connections. Following this
approach RRs are fully meshed and rest of the BGP
speakers within AS peer only with this RRs rather than
with each other.
x S4:MPLS Traffic Engineering (TE)
TE deployment offers service provider to increase
revenue allowing them to save money spent on extra
resources which are not really required. This is
achieved with the extra work spent for building a Fig. 2: VRF implementation on PE2 router
MPLS network topology with embedded TE
functionality. B. Multi-protocol BGP
Every traffic that flows through the link can be planned MP-BGP is run only on the PE routers, for connectivity
and its path can be decided using TE. Here, every between the customers and IGP(Internal Gateway Protocol)
customer is provide with a separate TE tunnel in the like OSPF is run in the MPLS core network to learn all the
same network. paths. Figure 3 shows BGP neighbors on PE2.
x S5:Failover functionality in MPLS
Path protection also known as end-to-end protection is
one of the essential protection service providers can
offer. Primary LSP(Label Switched Path) is backed up
by another LSP between the same source and
destination but using different physical path. It is one
of the most common practice of providing resiliency.
Under normal conditions only primary LSP is used for
the traffic.
Local protection using FRR [8] provides shortest
possible bypass path around the failure point. This in
the end makes path recovery very fast with minimum Fig. 3: BGP neighbors on PE2 router
devices involved in the recovery [9]. Bypass path is
pre-computed and maintained in hardware ready to be C. Route Reflector(RR)
used immediately when failure is detected.
In a MP_BGP MPLS network all PEs should be connected
to each other. In this scenario there are 6 PEs and if all are
supposed to be connected to each other then in all 15 links

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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

would be required which is not affordable to the service

provider. Hence here PE2 and PE3 are declared as RR and
other PEs are supposed to get connected to only either one of
them which shall be called as its client. Here, PE1 is the client
of PE2 and PE4, PE5, PE6 are the clients of PE 3 as shown in
Fig. 4.

Fig. 7: MPLS TE tunnel 3 for customer C

E. Failover functionality in MPLS

To protect the tunnels from any kind of failover FRR and
Record Route object is implemented on the tunnels as shown in
Fig. 8.

Fig. 4: Route Reflector Clients of PE3 router.

D. MPLS Traffic Engineering (TE)

In the given scenario customers A, B and C have their site 2
locations connected to PE6 and all of them demand for a
separate link between their headquarters and their sites. Hence
three different traffic engineered tunnels are created for them as
shown in Fig. 1. The path taken by traffic from the
headquarters to their site 2 is as shown in Fig. 5, Fig. 6 and Fig.
7

Fig. 8: Path Protection over tunnels

V. CONCLUSION
The major challenge for MPLS network is to cope up with
the ever increasing needs and demands for various services in
limited amount of resources. Meanwhile it should also maintain
Fig. 5: MPLS TE tunnel 1 for customer A the quality of services in terms of packet loss, jitter, delay,
privacy and security. This paper provides a design for such a
complex MPLS enabled network along with various criteria
and features, thus proving it to be a promising technology for
future also. Every step required to design a traffic engineered
MPLS VPN network with path protection is mentioned and
proved by implementing the scenario in GNS3 software.
The use of this design will limit the wastage of unused links
and instead provide tunneled route for every customer at the
same instant and in the same network infrastructure. This in
turn will prove to be cost effective for both the customers and
service provider. The implementation of the proposed design
Fig. 6: MPLS TE tunnel 2 for customer B
will surely reduce parameters like packet loss and delay.
Security and privatization of the link is achieved by using
complex MPLS VPN, that puts restrictions on the connectivity
with unwanted customers. Failover functionality is provided for
guaranteed service to customers by giving path protection to
the important traffic engineered tunnels.

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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT [5] E. Rosen and Y. Rekhter, BGP/MPLS VPNs, Internet

Engineering Task Force, RFC 2547, 1999.
We would like to express our gratitude towards Dr. R.N.
[6] LI Ming-hui and XIA Jing-bo, Research and Simulation on
Awale for his crucial guidance and assistance in our project.
VPN Networking Based on MPLS, in 2008 International
We are also thankful to our institute Veermata Jijabai Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and
Technological Institute, Mumbai, India for providing the Mobile Computing, Dalian, China, October 12-17 2008.
facilities to carry out our research and project work. [7] Jasmina Barakovic, Himzo Bajric and Amir Husic, Multimedia
Traffic Analysis of MPLS and non-MPLS Network, in 48th
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