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2019-Recent Trends in MPLS Networks-Technologies - Applications and Challenges
2019-Recent Trends in MPLS Networks-Technologies - Applications and Challenges
Review Article
Mohammad Azmi Ridwan1 , Nurul Asyikin Mohamed Radzi1,2, Wan Siti Halimatul Munirah Wan Ahmad1,
Fairuz Abdullah1,2, Md.Zaini Jamaludin1,2, Mohd Nasim Zakaria3
1Instituteof Informatics and Computing in Energy (IICE), Universiti Tenaga Nasional, 43000 Kajang, Malaysia
2Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, 43000 Kajang, Malaysia
3Architecture and Governance, TNB ICT, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
E-mail: m.azmiridwan@gmail.com
Abstract: Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks are packet-based networks that offer considerable advantages,
including improved network utilisation, reduced network latency, and the ability to meet the quality of service and strict level
agreement requirements of any incoming traffic. A vast number of applications are now migrating to packet-based conditions
that cause increased pressure on network providers to change their systems. Innovations and improvements on MPLS are still
on-going to ensure that such networks can cater to the ever-increasing bandwidth demand whenever required. This study
provides a review of MPLS networks and their promising technologies, such as traffic engineering, protection and restoration,
differentiated services, and MPLS-transport profile (MPLS-TP) and its applications. This work also reviews recent issues on
MPLS networks and discusses the implementation of MPLS-TP networks in the power grid. A review of recent literature shows
that researchers should be careful in proposing new protocols or designs for MPLS to ensure that it achieves the most efficient
and optimal performance. Furthermore, it can be concluded that although MPLS is a promising technology for future networks,
there are challenges to overcome with regards to security and network flexibility, especially as far as migration to MPLS-TP is
concerned.
1 Introduction path, allocate multiple services in the same network, and treat each
traffic based on QoS requirements.
Circuit-based networks can no longer withstand traffic demand due Given the considerable benefits of MPLS networks, research is
to perpetually increasing bandwidth and delay-sensitive being conducted to ensure that high-bandwidth demand can be
applications. Packet-based applications, such as voice over Internet addressed. Several related reviews on MPLS networks [3–7], with
protocol (VoIP), long-term evolution, and on-demand videos, are their advantages, are summarised in Table 1. However, these
becoming increasingly popular. Hence, current communication studies have focused on only one MPLS technology, whereas our
networks must be improved so that they can manage traffic and review paper addresses broad-ranging MPLS technologies,
fulfil their service level agreement (SLA) [1]. However, network including traffic engineering (TE), differentiated services
designers face challenges in optimising network performance to (DiffServ), protection and restoration, and MPLS-transport profile
achieve the highest efficiency at a reduced cost. (MPLS-TP, an MPLS protocol), in addition to its applications and
Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) can fully optimise recent issues. To the best of our knowledge, the present work is the
network resources and provide quality of service (QoS) treatment first to discuss recent issues and trends among MPLS technologies.
to the traffic, which has become the de-facto standard for core The organisation of this paper is as follows. Section 2 discusses
network infrastructure. MPLS is scalable, connection-oriented, and the architecture, terminology and advantages of an MPLS network.
independent of any packet-forwarding transport technology. MPLS Section 3 elaborates on the MPLS technologies, including TE,
also reduces the Internet protocol (IP) address look-up at each DiffServ, protection and restoration, MPLS-TP and implementation
router and minimises network latency. MPLS improves packet of MPLS-TP in the power grid. Finally, Section 4 is the
forwarding in a network and overcomes disadvantages of IP conclusions of this study.
forwarding [2]. An MPLS network can decide the best forwarding
Table 1 Recent review papers on MPLS network 2 Architecture and advantages of MPLS networks
Authors Year Reviewed area The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) introduced MPLS in
Haddaji et al. [3] 2018 addressed technical challenges 1997 to initially thoroughly address MPLS development. The
encountered by service providers in following issues of MPLS networks were identified:
migrating to MPLS-TP networks
Suhaimy et al. [4] 2018 analysed recent MPLS-TP applications (i) Improving scalability for network layer routing using labels to
aggregate forwarding information.
Eugen [5] 2017 reviewed the performance of MPLS DiffServ
(ii) Improving flexibility in delivering routing services using
Kurimoto et al. [6] 2017 reviewed the MPLS software-defined radio-
MPLS labels to identify traffic with QoS and thus provide special
oriented layer-2 on-demand virtual private
treatment.
network services and network function
(iii) Implementing the label swapping paradigm to optimise
visualisation
networks and thus enhance performance.
Adewale et al. [7] 2016 conducted a comparative simulation study of
(iv) Simplifying router integration with cell switching-based
MPLS for latency and packet loss reduction
technology using common addressing, routing and management
over a wide area network
control.
Fig. 6 Similarities and differences between MPLS-TP and previous MPLS (i) The MPLS-TP data plane must be a subset of the MPLS data
networks plane, as defined by the IETF.
(ii) The design of the MPLS-TP should, as far as reasonably
good, it works well only when network resources are sufficient. possible, reuse existing MPLS standards.
During network congestion, the traffic will decrease or may (iii) Mechanism and capabilities must be able to interoperate with
experience delay and violate SLAs. existing IETF MPLS (RFC3031) and IETF Pseudowire Emulation
In the use of MPLS-TE alone, LSPs are set up by choosing Edge-to-Edge (RFC3985) control and data planes where
links with available resources while ensuring that the bandwidth is appropriate.
always ready for traffic consumption [30]. The only limitation is
(iv) MPLS-TP must support traffic-engineered capabilities that
that MPLS-TE operates only on available bandwidth across all
allow deterministic control of the use of network resources.
classes. In contrast, DiffServ-TE ensures that MPLS-TE is aware
of the CoS by allowing resource reservation and delivers QoS (v) MPLS-TP must support bidirectional transport paths with
guarantees to meet strict SLAs. symmetric bandwidth requirements.
However, SLA still cannot be fully guaranteed even after (vi) MPLS-TP must support static provisioning of transport paths
resources are reserved based on the level of applications with via the management plane.
properly marked traffic. Further mechanisms, such as policing and
admission control, have to be integrated to ensure that traffic stays Additional important requirements for Operations
within limits. At present, network providers use overprovisioning Administration and Maintenance (OAM) are acquired in the
to achieve the goal of service guarantees by ensuring that MPLS-TP network, such as congruency between the data path and
bandwidth is available more than needed. However, OAM, to allow in-band OAM and to have consistent OAM
overprovisioning has its own cost and may only work in normal capabilities for layer 2, pseudowires and LSPs. For improved
cases with no guarantee of success in the event of network failure. network resiliency and protection, the 50 ms protection standard
DiffServ-TE works by first determining the class type of traffic. and various path protections, such as 1:1, 1 + 1, and M:N, must be
The basic DiffServ-TE requirement is to be able to separate supported [33]; in addition, ring topologies and linear and meshed
bandwidth reservation for different classes of traffic. This need networks must be efficiently provided. Nonetheless, the most
requires the network to always keep track of how much bandwidth important architecture goals of an MPLS-TP network are
is available for each type of traffic dynamically at any given time compatibility with the existing MPLS architecture [32], availability
on all paths and routers throughout the network. LSPs that are to static and dynamic provision systems, and support of (without
traffic-engineered to guarantee bandwidth from a class type are dependence on) IP addressing. These goals are a continuation of
called DiffServ-TE LSPs. After traffic classification, the path is using IP addressing, but IP routing is not required because an
computed by calculating all known available bandwidth per class MPLS network uses label switching for packet forwarding. The
type for all priority levels. advantage of using MPLS-TP over the use of its predecessors, such
Traffic is mapped to a DiffServ-TE to the correct scheduler as IP/MPLS and GMPLS, is compatibility with existing MPLS
queue in two ways. technology even with added important capabilities, such as OAM
and resiliency. Some features in previous MPLS are discarded,
(i) EXP bits in the MPLS header are set appropriately at the LSP such as equal cost multipath routing, LDP and PHP.
ingress E-LSP. Fig. 6 shows that MPLS-TP is part of MPLS but with a set of
(ii) The scheduling behaviour is encoded in the forwarding state of new functions satisfying specific requirements of transport
the label of the LSP and EXP bits are used to convey the drop networks. The bidirectional feature (congruency) is needed for
preference for the traffic L-LSP. differential protection relay communications. Static provisioning
behaves similar to SDH, which operates through NMS but provides
Once the traffic is mapped to the correct LSP, it will receive the transport-like resilience with 50 ms protection switching [34].
correct DiffServ treatment. DiffServ provides QoS by dividing Meanwhile, in-band OAM is similar to SDH management, which
traffic into a small number of classes and allocating network performs monitoring, fault detection alarm and multilevel
resources on a per-class basis. Eugen[5] conducted a theoretical operations. Nevertheless, resilience and OAM functions are salient
analysis on MPLS DiffServ using the OPNET modeller simulator, features of MPLS-TP. In terms of resiliency, MPLS already has a
and their simulation results confirmed that DiffServ allows high- rich set of protection and restoration mechanisms, such as LSP
priority traffic to arrive at the destination faster than low-priority FRR and path protection. However, the vital focus in the context of
traffic while improving queuing delay. Meanwhile, MPLS-TE transport-like networks is resiliency, which can trigger protection
enables network resource reservation and optimisation. The from OAM and provide optimised protection in any topology,
integration of DiffServ with TE combines the advantages of both, especially in the ring-type topology, which is the most common
wherein the FRR mechanism improves the overall MPLS network. topology in MPLS networks. Meanwhile, the OAM function helps
Thus, traffic-engineered LSPs with per-traffic class granularity and provide crucial functions, such as reducing operational complexity
guaranteed resources for each traffic and strict QoS requirement and cost, by allowing automatic detection, localisation and failure
can be achieved in normal and network failure cases. handling. It also ensures network availability by locating and
dealing with failures even before clients report them and by
helping maintain SLAs in normal and failure operating conditions.
3.4 MPLS-TP
Network providers are forced to revamp their network 3.4.1 Integration of MPLS-TP with SDN: Similar to the MPLS
infrastructure to minimise operating cost. At present, circuit-based network, MPLS-TP is integrated with SDN to improve network
transport network is evolving to packet-based transport due to the flexibility and integrity by offering programmability, which is
flexibility and cost-benefit offered by packet-switching technology. provided by SDN. Related works have proposed a resource pooling
For this purpose, MPLS-TP is currently being developed to form a mechanism to improve network agility [35], implemented a virtual
basis for next-generation packet transport networks [31]. router based on SDN transport with automatic topology discovery
The goal of MPLS-TP is to provide transport functionality in function with MPLS-TP network [36], developed a generic model
MPLS while preserving the existing MPLS architecture [32]. The transport for SDN and MPLS-TP that enables easy operation of