MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies

by Ina Minei, Julian Lucek

MPLS holds the key to network convergence""Here at last is a single, all-encompassing resource where the myriad applications sharpen into a comprehensible text."" Kireeti Kompella, Juniper Fellow, Juniper Networks

""This should be the textbook for MPLS courses, both for training of experienced networking professionals and for universities."" Loa Andersson, Acreo AB, IAB-member and IETF MPLS working group co-chair

""MPLS-Enabled Applications is a must-read for anyone involved in enterprise or service-provider networks."" Dave Cooper, Sr. Manager IP Engineering, Global Crossing, Ltd.

The capability of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) to identify traffic based on its label at forwarding time, coupled with its ability to force traffic down pre-established paths, has created a whole range of new applications while enabling scaling of existing applications. To highlight the emerging developments, Ina Minei and Julian Lucek cover traffic engineering, L3VPNs (Layer 3 Virtual Private Networks), pseudowires, VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service), and much more. They methodically illustrate how MPLS holds the key to network convergence by allowing operators to offer more services over a single physical infrastructure and how it can reduce the cost of the network by streamlining operations. With over a hundred illustrations and thirteen in-depth chapters "MPLS-Enabled Applications" documents why MPLS is now considered "the" networking technology for carrying all types of network traffic, including voice telephony, real-time video, and the many types of data traffic.

"MPLS-Enabled Applications" Provides an authoritative, comprehensive overview of the current status and future potential of MPLS applications, including the latest IETF drafts.Examines all the major applications, including L3VPN, L2VPN, VPLS and pseudowires.Explains how to apply MPLS and tailor it to fit specific scenarios.Examines the scaling requirements of equipment at different points in the network under different deployment scenarios.Offers inclusive coverage of point-to-multipoint label switched paths, DiffServ-aware traffic engineering and QoS, inter-domain traffic engineering and path computation elements, route target filtering, and the latest developments in multicast support for L3VPNs.Covers the management and troubleshooting of MPLS networks and associated services, to enable high availability.

"MPLS-Enabled Applications" will provide those involved in the design and deployment of MPLS systems, as well as those researching the area of MPLS networks, with a thoroughly modern view of how MPLS is transforming the networking world.

Genres: Technical

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 7, 2005

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dabble in MPLS design and troubleshooting, but I didn't have much theoretical understanding of the reasons why MPLS networks were built the way they were. MPLS-enabled applications came to my attention when I was trying to figure out how point-to-multipoint LSPs would work in the context of IP multicast packet delivery, and it certainly delivered a solid theoretical basis for them.

I was surprised at how strongly the authors come down in favor of RSVP - LDP really comes across as an ugly hack. I was also surprised that while the book had lots of mentions of "some vendors do X and some do y", it didn't say which vendors did which, nor did it discuss the practical maturity of the respective approaches. While the RSVP bias makes sense the way they present it (it certainly comes across as a lot more powerful - LDP's only advantage that comes across is simplicity and IGP synchronization, while RSVP has TE and FRR capabilities. It would have been great to have seen "the rsvp implementation in JunOS works the way we discussed for the last N years, and Cisco introduced in in XR versions blah blah blah" or vice versa. Examples of configuration snippets in JunOS, IOS, IOS-XR or others would have been tremendously useful, and it is unfortunate that those were not included.

They also come down strongly in favor of the route-reflector+BGP autodiscovery approach to vpn signaling, and the force of their argument is very strong - it changes the work involved with configuration and deployment of a new PE, feature, or VPN from O(N^2) to O(N) - that is, a new PE only needs the RR configuration to be updated, instead of requiring that every other PE also be configured.

All in all, this was a great book on MPLS theory, but without much practical implementation detail.

[Bartek Krawczyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This plus MPLS Fundamentals from Cisco Press and you'll be a MPLS expert.