23-10-2009, 05:11 PM
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In early 1997, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) established the Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) working group to produce a unified and interoperable multilayer switching standard as each vendor (Cisco Systems, Lucent, and so on) developed a proprietary multilayer switching solution, maintaining the IP control component and label-swapping components in different ways. The majority of these multilayer switching solutions required an ATM transport because they could not operate over mixed media infrastructures, such as Frame Relay, PPP, SONET, and LANs. Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a versatile solution to address the problems faced by present day networks “ speed, scalability, Quality of Service (QoS) management, traffic engineering. MPLS performs a number of functions, such as, 1) it specifies mechanisms to manage traffic flows of various granularities, such as flows among different hardware, machines, or even flows among different applications. 2) It remains independent of the Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols. 3) It provides a means to map IP addresses to simple, ixed-length labels used by different packet-forwarding and packet-switching technologies. 4) It interfaces to existing routing protocols such as Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). 5) It supports the IP, ATM, and frame-relay Layer 2 protocols. In this presentation, the concept of MPLS will be delivered
