What is GMPLS?
A Unified Vision for Carrier Networks

Dr. Alberto Leon-Garcia
Co-Founder and CTO
AcceLight Networks
October 15, 2001

The challenge is known. Now, more than ever, profitability depends on improved return on investment (ROI). For telecommunications service providers, ROI is inseparable from efficient use of network resources. This means that the service providers who will emerge as winners from the current economic downturn are those that deploy the most efficient and cost-effective network infrastructures. Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (G-MPLS) can help service providers both reduce operational expenditures and increase the services they offer to their customers.

G-MPLS

G-MPLS is a logical evolutionary advance from IP through MPLS and MPLlS. With support from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), it is fast becoming an industry standard. Development of G-MPLS began with the premise that it is possible to implement full integration of provisioning for all traffic types. G-MPLS was thus developed with the goal of creating a single suite of protocols that would be applicable to all service and transport traffic.

G-MPLS brings the intelligence and dynamic circuit (or path) provisioning of packet services to TDM and wavelength services. Its extensions offer a common mechanism for data forwarding, signaling and routing on transport networks. G-MPLS thereby extends the MPLS label and LSP (Label Switched Path) mechanisms to create Generalized Labels and Generalized LSPs. These extensions affect routing and signaling protocols for activities such as label distribution, traffic engineering, and protection and restoration.

G-MPLS is in many ways analogous to the labels used by next-day delivery services. A single type of label is used for all packages and destinations. The same label is used to get a letter, a parcel or a suitcase delivered across town or across the ocean, and by the most appropriate means, be that bicycle, truck or air freight. The single label guarantees speedy, cost efficient delivery and can be read by the different departments, such as sorting, routing and delivery.
Similarly, G-MPLS provides a labeling mechanism that can be used to get all traffic types to its destination—packet, TDM and wavelength. Thus, G-MPLS enables evolution to simpler, more efficient network architectures.

G-MPLS can be deployed in a traditional overlay network to bring IP intelligence to non-packet traffic. The benefits of G-MPLS are most fully realized, however, in a network where G-MPLS enables consolidation of the control plane and extension of topology awareness and bandwidth management across all network layers.

Next page >>

Page 1 of 3