MPLS

Introduction

Fabien Degouet
CCIE #6684 RS/Sec/Voice/SP/Wireless/Storage

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Abstract
Provide an overview of the business and technical
requirements for Multi-protocol label switching.
Provide a brief overview of the control and data
plane of MPLS and the services which may be
enabled on top of MPLS.

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Agenda
Introduction
Protocol Operation
MPLS Applications
Advances in MPLS
Summary

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Prior to MPLS
ATM and FR most popular WAN technologies
Growing interest in IP at Network Layer
IP Inherently any-to-any, FR/ATM Circuit Based
Many built IP overlay networks on top of ATM and
Frame Relay to feed the demand for IP
Forwarding paradigm sub-optimal

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2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Overlay Routing Model

Point-to-point Circuits
No L3 awareness in Provider
Sub-optimal Routing
Routing as overlay
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2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Overlay Routing Model Mesh

100 Sites 4950 Circuits

Point-to-point Circuits
No L3 awareness in Provider
More Optimal Routing
N2 Scaling Problem
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Peer Routing Model

Provider L3 Aware
Optimal any-to-any routing
All routes in global table
Full routes needed in Core

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Multi-Service Networks
Pre-1997: A world of many networks
Dont confuse access technology with end-to-end
forwarding
Frame
Relay

PSTN

Ethernet

ATM

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

IP

Introducing MPLS
First discussed in IETF in 1997
Main concept of forwarding Data based on labels
Based on Cisco Proprietary Tag Switching
Data Layer Agnostic ATM, FR, Ethernet
MPLS Group
formally chartered
by IETF
Cisco calls a
BOF at IETF to
standardize
tag switching

1996
Presentation_ID

1997

Cisco ships
MPLS TE

Cisco ships
MPLS (tag
switching)

1998

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Large scale
deployment
AToM
services

MPLS VPN
deployed

TE
deployed

1999
Cisco Confidential

2000

2001

2002/3

Layer 2
Interworking
mVPNs
MPLS OAM
VPLS

2004/5

Inter-provider
capabilities
HA
Security
VPLS
Services

2006+
9

Problems addressed by MPLS

Scalability of Network Layer Routing
Separation of Customer / Provider routing

Greater flexibility in delivering services

Explicit Path Definition

Simplify integration between routing and cell

switching
Increased performance
Label swapping vs. IP Lookups

Separation of Data Type from Transport Protocol

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

10

MPLS Applications
Major advantage of MPLS is Label Hierarchy
Enables New Services without paradigm change
L3VPN and AToM widely deployed
Unicast
Any
& Multicast Transport
L3 VPNs
Over MPLS

VPLS

Traffic
Engineering

IP+Optical
GMPLS

MPLS
Single Network Infrastructure

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

11

Agenda
Introduction
Protocol Operation
MPLS Applications
Advances in MPLS
Summary

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

12

MPLS Label Format

0
1
2
3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1

Label # 20bits

EXP S

TTL-8bits

COS/EXP = Class of Service

S = Bottom of Stack
TTL = Time to Live

Payload

Presentation_ID

IP Header

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

MPLS Label (s)

Cisco Confidential

Ethernet Header

13

Terminology
PE
P

PE
PE
PE
P

PE

Provider Routers = Core Routers

Provider Edge Routers = Edge Routers
Operations Push, Pop, Swap

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

PE

Protocol Operation
Control Plane
Neighbour discovery and establishment
Learns labels for each FEC
Advertises labels to Neighbours

LDP

Populates the LIB

IGP still required to determine destination node

Data Plane
Population of LFIB from LIB
Forwarding of Labelled Packets

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

15

MPLS Core Architecture Summary

1a. Routing Protocols Establish
Reachability to Destination Networks
1b. LDP Establishes Label to Destination
Network Mappings

2. Ingress Edge LSR Receives Packet,

Performs Layer 3 Value-Added Services,
and Labels Packets
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

4. Edge LSR at
Egress Removes
Label and Delivers
Packet

3. LSR Switches Packets

Using Label Swapping
16

Agenda
Introduction
Protocol Operation
MPLS Applications
Advances in MPLS
Summary

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

17

MPLS Applications
Major advantage of MPLS is Label Hierarchy
Enables New Services without paradigm change
L3VPN and AToM widely deployed
Unicast
Any
& Multicast Transport
L3 VPNs
Over MPLS

VPLS

Traffic
Engineering

IP+Optical
GMPLS

MPLS
Single Network Infrastructure

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

18

MPLS L3VPN
Most popular MPLS Application
Enables sharing of Core network
Provides isolation
Separate Routing tables per Service
Overlapping addresses

Used in 99% of Service Providers

Increasing number of Enterprise MPLS Networks
Separation of Business Units
Separation of Internet / WAN Traffic
Interconnectivity of Data Centres

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

19

MPLS L3VPN
Customer A
Manchester

Customer B
Frankfurt

Customer A
London
Customer A
Amsterdam

Customer B
London

Enables Peer Routing Model

Enables multi-tenancy or virtualization
Permits Routing Hierarchy
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Customer B
Paris

MPLS L3VPN Shared Services

Internet

Customer A
Manchester

Customer B
Frankfurt

Customer A
London
Customer A
Amsterdam

Customer B
London

Data Center

Shared Services

Customer B
Paris

Common for Management, Value Added Services (Backup)

Common in Banks for Payment processing / Trading Feeds
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

MPLS L3VPN - Protocols

Inner Label maps Packet to Customer
iBGP to transport Customer Routes
Route Distinguishers
Route Targets

VRFs defined per Service

Ingress Interfaces mapped to VRFs
Customer routes imported into BGP
RD/RT used to distribute routes to egress PEs
Route reflectors used for Scaling iBGP

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

22

AToM - EoMPLS
Customer A
Manchester

Customer B
Frankfurt

Customer A
Amsterdam

Customer B
London

Transit of L2 Frames over MPLS Core Network

Ethernet most common, but also Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Virtual Private LAN Switching

Customer B
Manchester

Customer B
Frankfurt

Customer B
London

Customer B
Paris

Enables Multi-point L2 connectivity over MPLS

Full Mesh of Pseudowires
Devices learn MAC addresses (from L2 Access/Core)
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Hierarchical VPLS
Customer B
Manchester

Customer B
Frankfurt

Customer B
London

Customer B
Paris

Simply just a hierarchy with VPLS at the Core

Reduces number of nodes running VPLS
Enhances scaling characteristics
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

MPLS Traffic Engineering

Customer A
Manchester

Customer A
Amsterdam

Used predominantly for traffic steering

Also provides fast re-route
Ingress Node determines traffic path
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

MPLS-TE Link Protection

Customer A
Manchester

Customer A
Amsterdam

Pre-configured backup paths for a primary tunnel

Can become somewhat unwieldy in a Large network
Some auto-features can help
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

MPLS-TE Node Protection

Customer A
Manchester

Customer A
Amsterdam

Pre-configured backup paths for a primary tunnel

Can become somewhat unwieldy in a Large network
Some auto-features can help
Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

Agenda
Introduction
Protocol Operation
MPLS Applications
Advances in MPLS
Summary

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

29

Advances in MPLS
Inter-Provider MPLS
Multicast VPN (mVPN, LSM)
IPv6 Capabilities - 6PE / 6VPE
MPLS Transport Profile
Seamless/Unified MPLS

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

30

Agenda
Introduction
Protocol Operation
MPLS Applications
Advances in MPLS
Summary

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

31

Summary
MPLS common in Enterprise Deployments
L3VPNs the predominant Service
Shared Services enables Value Added Services
Continued Cisco Innovation in MPLS
Multicast VPNs
Unified MPLS
MPLS Transport Profile

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

32

More Information
Feel free to contact me directly if mode detail is
needed or you wish to discuss your scenario:
fdegouet@cisco.com

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

33

Presentation_ID

2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cisco Confidential

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