© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Module Summary MPLS is a switching mechanism that uses labels to forward packets. MPLS consists of two major components: control plane and data plane. The control plane exchanges routing information and labels, while the data plane forwards packets or cells. Every LSR assigns a label for every destination in the IP routing table. Although labels are locally significant, they have to be advertised to directly reachable peers. Packets are forwarded using labels from the LFIB table rather than the IP routing table. MPLS configuration tasks include configuring IP CEF, tag switching, and setting MTU size. MPLS VPN architecture combines the best features of the overlay and peer-to-peer VPN models. PE routers forward packets across the MPLS VPN backbone using label stacking.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v1.03-2