Brocade Multi-Service IronWare Multiprotocol Label Switch (MPLS) Configuration Guide (Supporting R05.6.00) - Manual (Page 28)

4 Multi-Service IronWare Multiprotocol Label Switch (MPLS) Configuration Guide
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IETF RFC and Internet draft support
1
NOTE
MPLS cannot be configured on the system globally when a NI-MLX-10Gx8-D card is installed.
This chapter explains how to configure Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) on the Brocade device
for traffic engineering purposes. MPLS can be used to direct packets through a network over a
pre-determined path of routers. Forwarding decisions in MPLS are based on the contents of a label
applied to the packet.
Traffic engineering is the ability to direct packets through a network efficiently, using information
gathered about network resources. When used as an application of MPLS, traffic engineering
involves creating paths that make the best use of available network resources, avoiding points of
congestion and making efficient use of high bandwidth interfaces. Packets travelling over these
paths are forwarded using MPLS.
IETF RFC and Internet draft support
The implementation of MPLS supports the following IETF RFCs and Internet Drafts.
MPLS
RFC 3031 – Multiprotocol Label Switching Architecture
RFC 3032 – MPLS Label Stack Encoding
RFC 3036 – LDP Specification
RFC 2205 – Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1 Functional Specification
RFC 2209 – Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1 Message Processing Rule
RFC 3209 – RSVP-TE
RFC 3270 – MPLS Support of Differentiated Services
RFC 4090 – Facility backup and Fast Reroute
OSPF
RFC 3630 TE Extensions to OSPF v2
IS-IS
RFC 3784 Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) Extensions for Traffic Engineering
(TE)
How MPLS works
MPLS uses a label switching forwarding method to direct packets through a network. In label
switching, a packet is assigned a label and passes along a predetermined path of routers.
Forwarding decisions are based on the contents of the label, rather than information in the
packet’s IP header.