GMPLS

Christian Ardila
William Perez

GENERALIZED MULTIPROTOCOL LABEL

SWITCHING

GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching), also

known as Multiprotocol Lambda Switching, is a technology that
provides enhancements to Multiprotocol Label Switching
(MPLS) to support network switching for time, wavelength, and
space switching as well as for packet switching. In particular,
GMPLS will provide support for photonic networking, also
known as optical communications.

GENERALIZED MULTIPROTOCOL
LABEL SWITCHING

MPLS involves setting up a specific path for a given sequence

ofpackets by labeling every packet so that a routing table
does not have to be referred in order to figure out which
outward path a packet should be switched toward its
destination.

WAVELENGTH DIVISION
MULTIPLEXING

Traditional Electronic Time-Division Multiplexed(ETDM)

networks use an electrical signal form to switch traffic along
routes and restore signal strength. These networks do not fully
exploit the bandwidth available on optical fibers because only
a single frequency (wavelength orlambda) of light is used on
each fiber to transmit data signals that can be modulated at a
maximum bit rate of the order of 40 Gbps.

WAVELENGTH DIVISION
MULTIPLEXING

Multiple wavelengths are multiplexed into a single optical fiber

and multiple light-path data is transmitted as shown in Figure
1.

Recuperado de http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_11-3/113_gmpls.html

OPTICAL TRANSPORT
BACKBONES

The modern Internet transport infrastructure (figure 2) can be physically seen as a

very complex mesh of variously interconnected optical or traditional ETDM
subnetworks, where each subnetwork consists of several heterogeneous routing
and switching devices built by the same or different vendor and operating
according to the same control plane protocols and policies

Recuperado de http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_11-3/113_gmpls.html

AUTOMATICALLY SWITCHED OPTICAL

NETWORKS

For automatically switched networks, where network nodes may directly

initiate or terminate new connections or perform wavelength-level
switching in the network, sophisticated and flexible control functions are
needed.

Two families of protocolos:

Routing protocolsare specifically responsible for the reliable advertisement

of the optical network topology and the available bandwidth resources
within and between network domains.
Signaling protocolsare responsible for provisioning, maintaining, and
deleting connections.

GMPLS CONTROL PLANE FUNCTIONS

AND SERVICES

GMPLS focuses mainly on the control plane services that perform connection
management for the data plane (the actual forwarding logic) for both packetswitched interfaces and non-packet-switched interfaces. The GMPLS control plane
essentially facilitates four basic functions:

Routing controlProvides the routing capability, traffic engineering, and topology

discovery
Resource discoveryA mechanism to keep track of the system resource availability
such as bandwidth, multiplexing capability, and ports
Connection managementProvides end-to-end service provisioning for different
services, including connection creation, modification, status query, and deletion
Connection restorationImplements an additional level of protection to the networks
by establishing for each connection one or more presignaled backup paths and
enabling very fast switching in case of failure between them.

ADVENTAGES

Innovations in the field of optical components will take

advantage of the introduction of all-optical networking in all
areas of information transport and will offer system designers
the opportunity to create new solutions that will allow smooth
evolution of all telecommunication networks. A new class of
versatile IP-addressable optical switching devices is emerging,
operating according to a common GMPLS-based control plane
to support full-featured traffic engineering in modern optical
transparent infrastructures.

ADVENTAGES

The main advantage of this approach is that it is based on

already existing and widely deployed protocols while
simplifying network management and engineering tasks that
can be performed in a unified way in both the data and the
optical domains.
This new photonic internetwork will make it possible to
provision high bandwidth in tenths of seconds, and enable new
revenue-generating services and dramatic cost savings for
service providers.

REFERENCES

Rouse, M.. (2015). GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label

Switching Or Multiprotocol Lambda Switching) Definition. mayo
2,2015, de TechTarget Sitio web: http://
searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/GMPLS
Palmieri, F.. (2015). GMPLS Control Plane Services in the NextGeneration Optical Internet. Mayo 2, 2015, de CISCO Sitio web:
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/
ipj_11-3/113_gmpls.html