Rick Gallahers MPLS Training Guide: Building Multi Protocol Label Switching Networks

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In data and voice networks, traffic engineering functions in order to direct traffic to the available resources. If achieving a smooth-flowing network by moving traffic around were a simple process, our networks would never experience slowdowns or rush hours.

On the Internet (as with highways), four steps must be undertaken to achieve traffic engineering: measuring, characterizing, modeling, and moving traffic to its desired location (see Figure 5.2).

Figure 5.2: Four Aspects of Traffic Engineering

Articles and white papers tend to focus on only one aspect of MPLS traffic engineering. For example, you may read an article about traffic engineering that addresses only signaling protocols or one that just talks about modeling; however, in order to perform true traffic engineering, all four aspects must be thoroughly considered.

With the advent of MPLS, we no longer have to worry about the traffic on all the highways in the world. We don't even have to worry about the traffic on Interstate 5. We need only be concerned about the traffic in our express lane-our MPLS tunnel. If we create several tunnels, we need to engineer the traffic for each tunnel.


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