Multi-Protocol Label Switching

(MPLS)

1
 MPLS Overview

• A forwarding scheme designed to speed up IP

packet forwarding (RFC 3031)
• Idea: use a fixed length label in the packet header
to decide packet forwarding
• Label carried in an MPLS header between the link layer
header and network layer header
• Support any network layer protocol and link layer
protocol

2
 MPLS Header Format
• Label: 20-bit label value
• Exp: experimental use
• Can indicate class of service
• S: bottom of stack indicator
• 1 for the bottom label, 0 otherwise
• TTL: time to live

20 3 1 8

Label Exp S TTL

3
 Forwarding Equivalence Class

• An MPLS capable router is called a label

switching router (LSR)
• Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC): A
subset of packets that are all treated the
same way by an LSR
• A packet is assigned to an FEC at the
ingress of an MPLS domain
4
 Forwarding Equivalence Class
• A packet’s FEC can be determined by one or more
of the following:
• Source and/or destination IP address
• Source and/or destination port number
• Protocol ID
• Differentiated services code point
• Incoming interface
• A particular PHB (scheduling and discard policy)
can be defined for a given FEC
5
 MPLS Operation
• At ingress LSR of an MPLS domain, an MPLS header is
inserted to a packet before the packet is forwarded
• Label in the MPLS header encodes the packet’s FEC
• At subsequent LSRs
• The label is used as an index into a forwarding table that specifies
the next hop and a new label.
• The old label is replaced with the new label, and the packet is
forwarded to the next hop.
• Egress LSR strips the label and forwards the packet to final
destination based on the IP packet header
6
 MPLS Operation
Intf Label Intf Label Intf Label Intf
In In Out Out In In Out
3 50 1 40 3 40 1

FEC Intf Label 1

3 3
Out Out 1
a 1 50 2
40
1 2
50
3
2

7
 Label Switched Path
• For each FEC, a specific path called Label Switched Path (LSP)
is assigned
• The LSP is unidirectional
• To set up an LSP, each LSR must
• Assign an incoming label to the LSP for the corresponding FEC
• Labels have only local significance
• Inform the upstream node of the assigned label
• Learn the label that the downstream node has assigned to the LSP
• Need a label distribution protocol so that an LSR can inform
others of the label/FEC bindings it has made
• A forwarding table is constructed as the result of label
distribution.
8
 Label Distribution
Intf Label Intf Label Intf Label Intf
In In Out Out In In Out
3 50 1 40 3 40 1

1 47.1
Request: 47.1
3
Dest Intf Label
Out Out s t : 47.1 2
ue 3
47.1 1 50 Req 1
1 Mapping: 40
2
0
47.3 3 p i ng: 5 47.2
p
Ma
2

9
 LSP Route Selection

• Hop-by-hop routing: use the route determined by

the dynamic routing protocol
• Explicit routing (ER): the sender LSR can specify
an explicit route for the LSP
• Explicit route can be selected ahead of time or
dynamically

10
 Explicitly Routed LSP
• Advantages
• Can establish LSP’s based on policy, QoS, etc.
• Can have pre-established LSP’s that can be used in case of
failures.
• Signaling protocols
• CR-LDP
• RSVP-TE

11
 Diffserv-Aware MPLS
• MPLS can be used together with Differentiated Services
to provide QoS.
• LSPs are configured between each ingress-egress pair.
• For each ingress-egress pair, a separate LSP can be created
for each traffic class, or
• Can create a single LSP for each ingress-egress pair and use
the Exp bits to differentiate packet classes.
• Scalable: as the number of flows increases, the number
of LSPs does not increase.

12
 Diffserv-Aware MPLS
• Operations of routers in an ISP network
• At the ingress router, in addition to policing, a MPLS
header is inserted into the packet.
• Core routers process the packets based on the label and
Exp fields
• At the egress router, the MPLS header is removed.
• Whether a ISP’s architecture is DS field-based or
MPLS-based is transparent to other ISPs
 The DS field based architecture and the MPLS
based architecture can easily inter-operate.
13
 Diffserv-Aware MPLS

• A customer domain still needs a BB to

• Allocate services
• Request for resources on behalf of the customer domain
when the SLA is dynamic.
• BBs may not be needed in the MPLS-based ISP
networks
• Ingress router can make the admission control decision
• If the resource request is granted, ingress router sends a
PATH message to egress router through a LSP
14
 Why MPLS Protection?
• IP restoration is very slow
• OSPF, RIP, etc. require a redistribution of updated link status
information in response to a failure.
• Routing table convergence time on the order of seconds.
• Looping and packet loss can occur during convergence
• MPLS enables fast failure restoration

15
 MPLS Protection Approaches
• End-to-End protection
• A backup LSP is set up in advance from the source LSR to the
destination LSR of the primary LSP.
• The backup LSP is link and node disjoint with the primary LSP
• Need reserve resources for the backup LSP
• Source LSR responsible for restorationsender must be notified of
the failure

16
 MPLS Protection Approaches
• Local protection
• When establishing a primary LSP, a backup LSP for each possible
link or node failure is set up
• Resources reserved for each backup LSP
• Failure detecting LSR responsible for switching traffic to the backup
LSR
• Faster restoration than end-to-end protection

17
 Local Protection

• Problem: must create a separate set of backup LSPs

for every primary LSP
• Can a single LSP backup a set of primary LSPs?
• Yes! Use MPLS label stacking.

18
 Label Stacking
• A packet may carry multiple labels, organized as a last-
in-first-out stack
• A label may be added to/removed from the stack at any
LSR
• Processing always done on the top label
• Allow the aggregation of LSPs into a single LSP for a
portion of the route, creating a tunnel
• At the beginning of the tunnel, the LSR assigns the same
label to packets from different LSPs by pushing the label
onto each packet’s stack
• At the end of the tunnel, the LSR pops the top label
19
 Local Protection Using Label
Stacking
• Bypass tunnel: a LSP used to protect a set of LSPs
passing over a common facility.
• Label stacking allows different primary LSPs to
use the same bypass tunnel for failure protection.

20
 Local Protection Using Label
Stacking
When a failure occurs:
• LSR at the beginning of the tunnel will
• Switch packets received on the protected LSP x onto the bypass
tunnel
• Replace the old label with a new label that will be understood by
the last node in the bypass tunnel to indicate LSP x
• Push the bypass tunnel's label onto the label-stack of the redirected
packets.
• LSR at the end of the tunnel will
• Pop the bypass tunnel's label
• Examine the top label to determine the protected LSP that the
packet is to follow.

21
 Summary of MPLS

• Simplify packet forwarding based on a fixed length

label
• Enable explicit routing in IP networks
• Can be used for traffic management, QoS routing
• Enable fast restoration from failures.

22