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IP/MPLS
THEIR APPLICABILITY
FOR METRO NETWORKS
November 2012
Sponsored by ECI Telecom
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4
What is MPLS? ........................................................................................................................................ 4
How MPLS works..................................................................................................................................... 5
The evolving role of MPLS....................................................................................................................... 6
What is MPLS-TP? ................................................................................................................................... 7
How MPLS-TP works ............................................................................................................................... 7
The key differences between MPLS-TP and IP/MPLS ............................................................................. 9
Cost considerations ................................................................................................................................. 9
MPLS-TP-based applications ................................................................................................................. 10
Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 11
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INTRODUCTION
Over the last decade MPLS has become established as the dominant transport technology of choice
in packet-based core networks. Until recently though, metro aggregation and metro access domains
continued to be primarily based on legacy SONET/SDH transport technology.
This is changing now. Faced by huge increases in packet-based traffic, operators have been shifting
to packet-based transport in metro networks in order to lower the cost per transported bit. Ethernet
was an early favourite technology for this migration, but initial attempts to use Ethernet for
transport faced quite a few limitations:
Many of the drawbacks were linked directly to the connectionless nature of Ethernet. Significant
work has been invested across the telecoms industry in finding ways to make Ethernet more carrier
class. Some of these are based on enabling greater engineering of carrier Ethernet. Others are
based on using MPLS to support Ethernet service provision. In this context, while the natural step
looks like a simple extension of MPLS from the core to the metro, there are some key differences
between the metro and the core which make this challenging. As a result, work has been invested in
the development of an MPLS derivative, named MPLS-TP (Transport Profile).
This paper explores the role of MPLS and MPLS-TP in next generation telecoms networks, and the
differences in the way these protocols work. It also reviews the benefits of expanding the role of
MPLS as a transport solution; and analyses the various ways of doing this, and the pros and cons of
the different approaches.
WHAT IS MPLS?
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a protocol-agnostic mechanism for transporting data using
either a connection-oriented approach (based on MPLS plus RSVP) or connectionless (IP/MPLS with
LDP). MPLS has been standardized by the IETF, and has been designed to carry both circuit and
packet traffic over virtual circuits known as LSPs. It achieves this because it does not examine the
traffic data itself. It makes forwarding decisions using labels that are added (and removed) by the
MPLS routers. This means it can act as a single transport mechanism for many different kinds of data
traffic: ATM, Ethernet, IP and TDM traffic can all be carried, and can use connection-oriented
mechanisms to ensure circuit-switched traffic can be delivered across a packet core. MPLS is a
packet-switching network technology generally seen as residing at layer 2.5 of the OSI model
(between the Data Link Layer at layer 2; and the Network Layer at layer 3).
MPLS (with traffic engineering) can support the delivery of carrier-class Ethernet services by
overcoming the main limitations of pure Ethernet as a transport technology, as the table below
shows.
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MPLS
Ethernet
Scalability
Transport type
Connection-oriented transport
is supported in MPLS and
MPLS-TP
Traffic engineering
No (traffic engineering is
supported by PBB-TE)
Quality of Service
End-to-end bandwidth
reservation
Yes
Legacy (circuit-switched)
service support
Yes
Response times
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Sophisticated OAM
Fast protection switching
Scalability
Strong traffic engineering
Cost efficiency.
Sophisticated OAM transport network engineers are used to systems that have been developed
over years and which deliver very strong operations, administration and maintenance (OAM)
toolkits. In its original incarnation MPLS did not provide the same levels of capability.
Fast protection switching transport environments based on circuit switching (such as SONET/SDH)
offer very fast protection switching. This is relied upon to ensure customer experience and
continuity of important services. Operators deploying an MPLS-based transport network in access,
aggregation and edge networks must be able to match this benchmark level of performance with
restoration achieved in under 50ms something that cannot be achieved with MPLS fast reroute
without the support of RSVP-TE (which is complex and has scale limitations).
Scalability is critical because the access and aggregation environment can encompass thousands of
nodes many more than are typically found in core network environments. This means any routing,
resiliency and restoration architectures must be able to cope with much heavier processing and the
larger number of entities supported at each node.
Traffic engineering is required by network operations teams that want complete control, and the
ability to carefully, and closely, manage the usage and performance of the network, and to deliver a
deterministic, connection-orientated transport environment for those services that require it.
Cost efficiency is critical because metro and core topologies and scale are very different. This makes
the operational complexity a key factor in network TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). MPLS-based
network elements are expensive as they support the IP protocol stack and need to support a
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WHAT IS MPLS-TP?
MPLS-TP (MPLS Transport Profile) is a connection-oriented, deterministic, packet-switched transport
protocol. It has been developed through the cooperation of the IETF and ITU-T, with the ambition of
creating a version of MPLS optimised for transport networks. This transport-optimized solution
embodies the following characteristics:
Penultimate Hop Popping. Removing the MPLS label at the penultimate rather than final
MPLS hop to reduce load on the egress router is disabled because it cannot be assumed that
IP will be used for forwarding at the final router
Equal Cost Multi-Path. The ability to forward packets over a variety of equally best paths is
disabled, as it is incompatible with deterministic behaviour, and requires tracking of packet
performance.
Label Merge. The ability to merge traffic with different labels or from different interfaces to
a single label is forbidden, as this leads to loss of information about the source and the
complexity of monitoring each path individually.
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Additional data plane OAM capabilities. In MPLS-TP the OAM data is carried in a dedicated
in-band signalling channel, Generic Associated Channel, or G-Ach. Key features include
o
o
o
o
o
o
Enhanced protection capabilities. MPLS-TP has been designed to ensure that operators can
meet sub-50ms targets for path protection, in a variety of network physical configurations.
Key features include
o
o
o
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Factor
MPLS
MPLS-TP
Control plane
Devices
More complex
Less complex
Standardization maturity
Very mature
Emerging
Vast volumes
Vendor interoperability
Established
Emerging
> 50 ms
< 50 ms
Skill set
OAM features
COST CONSIDERATIONS
The implementation of an end-to-end MPLS / MPLS-TP-based architecture is primarily aimed at
delivering opex savings. Opex savings are expected to be achieved because operators can converge
their TDM, ATM, frame relay and Ethernet access and aggregation networks on to a single Ethernetand MPLS-based infrastructure. This enables them to remove legacy ATM, frame relay and TDM
equipment which is costly to maintain, and hard to find spares for. It also enables statistical
multiplexing for packet data that might have been travelling over the legacy TDM-based
infrastructures. Moreover, it allows management and maintenance of a single transport network
rather than multiple networks.
By integrating the access and aggregation networks operators also hope to benefit from improved
end-to-end visibility, a reduction in the complexity of managing the transport networks, and a
reduction in the number of different provisioning, management and OAM systems that need to be
maintained and monitored.
But when it comes to deploying either MPLS-TP or IP/MPLS in any given domain the issue of cost
requires significant attention. Key factors to consider are shown in the table below.
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Factor
Capex
MPLS-TP devices can be less sophisticated than full IP/MPLS routers, and so
cost less in the first place
Energy consumption
Operations cost
Efficiency of network
usage
Network Availability
MPLS-TP is more suitable for the metro carrier-class environment for the following reasons.
Overall, MPLS-TP provides all the benefits of MPLS but without the complications of running control
planes on a large number of network elements.
MPLS-TP-BASED APPLICATIONS
MPLS-TP is being considered by operators for a variety of purposes in access and aggregation
network environments, including:
Regional and metro aggregation supporting the aggregation of a variety of traffic types
(e.g. ATM, Ethernet, frame relay and TDM), over a single converged packet-based transport
infrastructure
Mobile backhaul providing a deterministic, connection-oriented backhaul infrastructure
that can carry 2G, 3G and LTE traffic over packet-based infrastructure, but providing a
transport networking environment which is familiar to mobile network operators
Retail business service improvement e.g. to provide deterministic, secure, connectionorientated networking across virtual networks for sensitive applications such as fixed and
mobile videoconferencing or for cloud-based services.
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SUMMARY
Operators now have a mix of technology choices for next generation access, aggregation and
metro/regional transport networks. As they migrate towards converged transport solutions based
on packet networks, they will have to choose between them. For some, the benefits of carrier
Ethernet will remain compelling. This is a comparatively low-cost technology, with strong transport
capabilities.
However, MPLS-TP offers an alternative architectural approach which has attracted the attention
and support of some of the very largest network operators. IP/MPLS and MPLS-TP each have their
own roles to play in the network. MPLS-TP is optimized for scalability, simplicity and cost and so suits
aggregation and metro networking environments. MPLS is tried and tested as a scalable, robust
transport platform for core network environments, and whilst more expensive than MPLS-TP due to
the increased processing capabilities of the devices, it has the traffic engineering capabilities to
ensure that core networks run efficiently.
IP/MPLS is entrenched as a core network technology; MPLS-TP is not suitable for that role. MPLS-TP
supports the extension of attractive MPLS capabilities into metro and aggregation network
environments without the MPLS drawbacks. MPLS and MPLS-TP are clearly complementary.
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