The MPLS-OPS Archive

["Hallstein Lohne" <hallstein.lohne@siving.hia.no>]

Title: Message

Our graduate thesis for the ICT Masters degree, "Mechanisms for OAM on MPLS in large IP backbone networks", is finished. It exist in an on-line (html) and a pdf-format for the general public. http://www.siving.hia.no/ikt02/ikt6400/g20/

 

We would like to thank the following people for providing us with answers to our questions posted at the various resources we have been using: Neil Harrison (British Telecom), David Allan (Nortel Network), Carlos Patriawan (Pluris.com), Carrie D. Harris (former Ericsson employee), Eng Wee, Mr. Ganesh (lntinfotech.com), Mark Gibs (onorchestream.com), Nirmit Kachrani (avaya.com), Mathew Lodge (cplane.com), Peter Morgan (AT&T), Mahesh Vsjetti (hns.com), Pall Ramanathan (arrisi.com), Robert Raszuk (Cisco), Roger Clark Williams (nordlink.com), Dr. Sidnie Feit (The Standish Group and a well-known author), Thomas D. Nadeau (Cisco) and Vic Nowoslawski (mac.com).

 

ABSTRACT

 

The telecom industry has an ongoing work on the Operation and Maintenance (OAM) mechanisms for the MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology. We are expecting that this technology will be the future platform for sending Internet Protocol (IP) packets through the backbone networks. OAM functionalities that exist or are proposed for MPLS are: Reachability and failure detection, avoidance of congested routers, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) features, fast rerouting functions, traffic engineering and ad-hoc mechanisms like Ping.

 

Our work shows that through a comparison of OAM mechanisms of MPLS to IP, MPLS is superior on the failure detection, fast rerouting and the traffic engineering functionalities. A mechanism shows how one can use our new algorithm (a patent application is planned) to detect specific traffic behavior, making the MPLS backbone handle this traffic more logic. Different OAM mechanisms for MPLS give different levels of redundancy, which is often proportional to the OAM traffic load. We have found that the Connectivity Verification (CV) traffic load should be differentiated between the Label Switched Paths (LSPs) that need protection switching and those that do not. A short period between LSP CV packets is needed whilst still providing the best available bandwidth for working traffic A table shows different proposed fast rerouting and protection switching mechanisms, easing the operator’s choice of that mechanisms to use in large MPLS backbone networks. We propose the ITU-T LSP connectivity verification mechanism, fast rerouting and protection switching, and the use of MPLS MIB as recommended OAM mechanisms for large backbone networks.

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As this is our graduate thesis, we would also like to use this opportunity to say that Hallstein Lohne is available for job offers in Bergen, Norway, and Johannes Vea in southern part of Norway.

 

Thank you all for an interesting view into the world of MPLS and your ongoing standardization work.

Good luck with MPLS!

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

Hallstein Lohne (hallstein@yahoo.com)

Johannes Vea (johannes@vea.no)

 

ICT Masters Programme, AUC, Norway