© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Implementation of Frame Mode MPLS Assigning MPLS Labels to Packets

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Label Allocation in a Frame Mode MPLS Environment

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Label Allocation in a Frame Mode MPLS Environment Label allocation and distribution in a frame mode MPLS network follows these steps: 1. IP routing protocols build the IP routing table. 2. Each LSR assigns a label to every destination in the IP routing table independently. 3. LSRs announce their assigned labels to all other LSRs. 4. Every LSR builds its LIB, LFIB, and FIB data structures based on the received labels. Note: Label allocation, label imposing, label swapping, and label popping usually happen in the service provider network, not the customer (enterprise) network. Customer routers will never see a label.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Building the IP Routing Table IP routing protocols are used to build IP routing tables on all LSRs. FIBs are built based on IP routing tables, initially with no labeling information.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Allocating Labels Every LSR allocates a label for every destination in the IP routing table. Labels have local significance. Label allocations are asynchronous.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v LIB and LFIB Setup LIB and LFIB structures have to be initialized on the LSR allocating the label. Untagged action will remove the label from the frame and the router will send a pure IP packet.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Label Distribution and Advertisement

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Label Distribution and Advertisement The allocated label is advertised to all neighbor LSRs, regardless of whether the neighbors are upstream or downstream LSRs for the destination.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Receiving Label Advertisement Every LSR stores the received label in its LIB. Edge LSRs that receive the label from their next hop also store the label information in the FIB.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Interim Packet Propagation Forwarded IP packets are labeled only on the path segments where the labels have already been assigned.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Further Label Allocation Every LSR will eventually assign a label for every destination.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Receiving Label Advertisement Every LSR stores received information in its LIB. LSRs that receive their label from their next-hop LSR will also populate the IP forwarding table.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Populating the LFIB Table

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Populating the LFIB Table Router B has already assigned a label to network X and created an entry in the LFIB. The outgoing label is inserted in the LFIB after the label is received from the next-hop LSR.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Packet Propagation Across an MPLS Network

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Packet Propagation Across an MPLS Network

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Penultimate Hop Popping

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Penultimate Hop Popping PHP optimizes MPLS performance (one less LFIB lookup). The pop or implicit null label uses a reserved value when being advertised to a neighbor.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Before the Introduction of the PHP Double lookup is not an optimal way of forwarding labeled packets. A label can be removed one hop earlier.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v After the Introduction of the PHP A label is removed on the router before the last hop within an MPLS domain.

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v Summary 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. Outgoing labels are inserted in the LFIB after the label is received from the next-hop LSR. Packets are forwarded using labels from the LFIB table rather than the IP routing table. PHP optimizes MPLS performance (one less LFIB lookup).

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.ISCW v