OPTIMAL AND GUARANTEED ALTERNATIVE

PATH FOR MULTIPLE LINK FAILURES IN MPLS

NETWORKS
Siva Rama Krishna .A Mr.Ashutosh Kumar Dikshit, Asst. Prof
Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering
VFSTR University VFSTR University
Vadlamudi, Guntur District, India Vadlamudi, Guntur District, India
sivaramakrishnafriend@gmail.com ashutoshcomes@gmail.com

I. Abstract--Traffic Engineering is one of the essentials

III. A.Label Information Base(LIB): It is the table
for backbones of Internet Service Providers(ISP).MPLS
contained in an LSR which gives the information of the
provides end to end performance for traffic by using
destination of a particular packet by examining given label.It
Label Switched Paths(LSP).Due to frequent failures in
is same as routing table in IP routing.
the network, the restoration of data has become a
challenging task to network administrators. We present
B.Label Switched Router (LSR):
basic recovery mechanisms, Makam's Scheme and
Haskin's Scheme compare them.The packet loss existed
in these mechanisms is overcome by introducing Fast It is the router which forwards packets based on the label
Rerouting and Reliable Fast Rerouting whose and by verifying Label Information Base(LIB).The
performance is far better compared to other two operation involved in the transfer of packets by LSR is
schemes, but packet delay and disordering exist.To swap operation.It is also called transit router.
overcome these, we propose Optimal and Guaranteed
Alternative Path recovery mechanism for multiple link c. Label Edged Router (LER):
failures. This is also called Ingress node or Egress node, which lies at
the end of the MPLS network.Ingress node will be at the
Indexterms--MPLS,Traffic beginning of MPLS network and Egress node will be at the
Engineering,LSP,Recovery,Ingress node,Egress Node end of the MPLS network.The label operation involved at
Failure,Backup LSP,Alternative LSP,RFR,OGAP (key the Ingress node is push operation, whereas the operation
words) involved at the Egress node is pop operation.

D.Label Switched Path (LSP): Label-switched paths

II. MPLS Introduction: (LSPs) is the path a packet chooses to travel along the
nodes.Each LSP is assigned a label value.There can be
Now a days it is common for backbone operators to use multiple LSPs in an
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) to route traffic MPLS network.
between Source and Destination in their networks. An
integrated approach to traffic engineering is provided by E. MPLS Header
MPLS traffic engineering for the backbone networks of
Internet Service providers.Multiprotocol Label
Label TC(QoS and ECN) Bottom of Stack TTL
Switching (MPLS) is one of the data-forwarding methods
for eminent realization of telecommunications This is also called Shim Header.MPLS functions by attaching
networks which forwards data from one network host to the an MPLS header to the packet, which contains one or more
next host on the basis of shortest path labels rather than labels(label stack).TC-Traffic Class, ECN-Explicit Congestion
long network addresses, to avoid complicated lookups in Notification, TTL-Time To Live.
a routing table(IP routing). MPLS works or lies in the
middle of conventional data link layer and network layer,
and thus belong to layer 2.5.

Fig: MPLS Network
IV. MPLS Recovery:
The recovery mechanisms can be classified based on two
criteria, one is the recovery path followed and other is the time
at which recovery is established.
The LSP from ingress LSR to egress LSR which forms the
working path in an MPLS recovery network is called Working
LSP or Primary LSP or Protection LSP.
The LSP which is rerouted to the alternative path after a failure
occurs is called alternative LSP or recovery LSP or restoration
LSP.
Local Recovery: In this method, the recovery operation is
performed locally to the link where failure is detected.The
intention of this type of repair is the fast recovery.
Global Recovery: In this method, the recovery can be done
if a failure occurs along any link of the protected path except
Ingress and Egress nodes.In this type, all links and nodes use a
single recovery path or protection.
Rerouting: In this method, the traffic is redirected to the
alternative path after the failure is detected.Traffic is rerouted
on demand.The recovery path is based on fault information and
routing policies.The advantage with this type is no pre-reserved
resources are required and the disadvantage is it takes more
time than protection switching to establish recovery.
Protection Switching: In this method, the recovery path is
pre-calculated and pre-setup before the link failure occurs.Thus
immediately after the failure occurs the traffic is rerouted to the
pre-established recovery path.It is fast compared to rerouting
but it consumes resources like bandwidth.
Point of Repair(POR): It is LSR which detects the failure
and performs the recovery operation.
A. MAKAM’S MODEL:
In this mechanism, whenever link failure occurs the traffic
is rerouted using global restoration path, Once a fault is
identified in the primary path, a Fault Indication Signal (FIS) is
propagated along the LSP by POR to the ingress LSR, which is
responsible for rerouting.The ingress LSR should be intimated
about the failure using FIS signal.The traffic along the LSP
before the FIS signal is sent to ingress LSR is lost.The loss will
be higher if the ingress node is far distant from the point of
failure and frequency of packets transmitting is high.
B. HASKIN’S MODEL:
In this model, a backward LSP is set up from the point of
failure to the ingress LSR.Whenever a fault is identified by an
LSR which is upstream to the point of failure (POR), it sends
back the traffic along the same path(backward LSP) to ingress
LSR.Once the traffic reaches the ingress LSR, it is redirected
along the global recovery path.Here both the backward LSP
and the recovery path are pre-setup (protection switching).The
first packet reversed by Point of Repair (POR) along the
backward LSP is used as FIS signal.When the first packet is
received by ingress LSR from backward LSP, the data packets
for primary LSP are rerouted into restoration LSP established
before from ingress LSR to egress LSR using a global recovery
mechanism.Until the FIS signal is reached to Ingress LSR, here
the packets originating at Ingress LSR experience a two-way
delay(Ingress LSR to POR and POR to Ingress LSR) before
being rerouted along the alternative path.The recovery process
seizes when the last packet from sent by Ingress LSR is
received by it.The disadvantage with Haskin’s Scheme is the
delay in establishing recovery path and disordering of
packets.The disordering of packets is caused when the newly
originating packets from Ingress LSR combine with those
arrive along backward LSP.
C. FAST REROUTING MECHANISM
In fast rerouting mechanism whenever a POR detects a failure,
the packets are forwarded along the backward LSP.As soon as
the LSRs in the backward LSP receives the packets from
POR, these LSRs begin to store the incoming packets from
ingress LSR in a local buffer which prevents the unwanted
transit of packets through the primary LSP(to and fro).Also,
the last packet forwarded by the LSRs is tagged to be
identified when it is back in its way.This helps in avoiding
disordering of packets when they are sent back by
intermediate nodes to the ingress router. By tagging a packet,
we can evade additional overhead.For this, we use ECN bits of
the MPLS shim header. The packets stored in each LSR's
buffer are sent back through backward LSP after it received
tagged packet.The node which gave a tag to packet removes it
when it returns.When the ingress node received its tagged
packet the packets stored in its buffer are routed into
alternative LSP.The packets along backward LSP which
reached ingress LSR are also routed to alternative LSP which
ends the restoration process.Then data packets which are in
the buffer of ingress LSR and incoming data packets from IP
routers(source) are redirected to restoration path. By using
this mechanism we retain global reordering of packets,
minimize packet loss.
We can notice that re-ordering of packets is retained globally
in the entire process.Even though Fast reroute scheme is better
than Haskin's scheme in reducing average delay in path
recovery and in eliminating packet disordering, some premium
networks which require very low path restoration time will
still get affected if they use fast rerouting scheme.So we
propose another model below.
D. RELIABLE AND FAST REROUTING(RFR)
The purpose of RFR mechanism is to give Quality of Service
for data packets forwarded along primary LSPs in core
networks of MPLS.
We again consider the same scenario in which the backward
and alternative LSPs are established.When POR finds an LSR
failed, it returns the traffic through backward LSP. The packet
received first by ingress LSR from POR is treated as FIS
signal.In this scheme, every LSR of the working LSP contains
a local buffer and the data packet being forwarded to next
LSR is stored in the buffer.There are two possible ways to
store these packets to the local buffer.One is the non-swapped
mode, in which the packets are stored in a buffer before the
swapping of packets from working LSP
backward/alternative LSP is done.The second is swapped
mode, in which first swapping is done and then they are stored
in the buffer.Even though both modes work well, the non-
swapping mode introduces processing delay and additional
overhead in the LSP.In the non-swapped mode, if a failure is
identified in the working path, the POR takes out the label
from shim header of the packet in the local buffer and then
perform the label swap operation for the corresponding output
label and also changes the output interface.In contrast, in
swapped mode, the LSR takes the label from MPLS header of
the packet in the local buffer and sends it directly to the output
interface as the swapping is already done.This mode gives
better performance and is used in RFR mechanism.
Behaviour of POR:
Whenever a POR detects a fault, it starts switchover procedure
of packets,i.e., between working path LSR and backward LSR
by label swapping operation.All the packets in the buffer of
POR are sent back to the Ingress node using backward
LSP.Any other packet coming from ingress node is also sent
back.This process avoids packet loss in link failure recovery.
Behavior of intermediate nodes in backward LSP:
When a node on backward LSP detects a packet coming back
from POR, it takes it as FIS signal and sends it downstream
the backward LSP to ingress router and invalidates the packets
stored in its buffer and the packets are sent to Ingress LSR for
routing into the alternative path.The further packet which is
coming next from the upstream LSR of primary LSP is given
a tag and is forwarded upto POR. All the following packets
that enter at this node along the primary path are stored in its
buffer and not forwarded to next node.This reduces packet
delay by avoiding packets circulating in a loop of primary LSP
and backward LSP.
Need of tagging in to avoid packet disorder
When a node identifies a packet tagged coming along a
backward LSP, it learns that all downstream packets are
drained and now it must send back packets in its buffer.
The packets stored in each LSR’s buffer are sent back through
backward LSP after it received its tagged packet.The node
which gave a tag to packet removes it when it returns.When
the ingress node received its tagged packet the packets stored
in its buffer are routed into alternative LSP.The packets along
backward LSP which reached ingress LSR are also routed to
alternative LSP which ends the restoration process. The
packets stored during this time in the ingress LSR, along with
all new incoming packets (from the source) are now sent via
the alternative LSP. By using this mechanism we retain global
reordering of packets, minimize packet loss and achieve fast
restoration.
V. MPLS Protection Domain (MPD):
A protection domain is a sequence of nodes bounded by
ingress LSR and Egress LSR (Primary LSP) including the
restoration Path (Recovery LSP). If a protection domain is
partitioned into multiple protection domains, then each
segment is called a Segment Protection Domain (SPD). In an
SPD if a failure occurs, it is solved within the SPD (Local
Recovery). Thus entire MPLS Domain is segmented into a no.
of MPLS SPDs.The SPD is an abstract of the autonomous
to system in IP routing. SPDs are established according to
administrative routing policies. The bandwidth of alternative
path for protection domain is used by Low Priority
LSPs(which has less priority than protected LSP) so that they
can be preempted by high priority alternative path if a link
failure occurs
Path protection of an LSP is establishing an alternative path
for entire LSP (Global recovery) when a failure occurs.
OPTIMAL AND GUARANTEED ALTERNATIVE
PATH (OGAP):
For Single Link Failure:
The figure shown below is for OGAP with single link failure.
In this approach, we combine segment protection and path
protection with local recovery activation.The MPLS domain is
divided into three SPDs. Each link shown in SPD in the figure
is a combination of one or more LSRs and links(not
shown).The representation of different LSPs in MPLS
domain is given below:
The ingress node is LSR 0 and egress node is LSR 5.
The working LSP or Protected LSP or Primary LSP is the
LSR0-LSR1-LSR2-LSR3-LSR4-LSR5 (solid lines)
The pre-established Recovery LSP is the LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-
LSR8-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 (dim lines)
MPLS Protection Domain (MPD) is LSR0-LSR1-LSR2-
LSR3-LSR4-LSR5 and LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-
LSR10-LSR5
SPD 1 is LSR0-LSR1, LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR1
SPD 2 is LSR1-LSR2-LSR3 and LSR1-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-
LSR3
SPD 3 is LSR3-LSR4-LSR5 and LSR3-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5
Backward LSP for Segment Protection Domain1 is LSR1-
LSR0 (dash-dotted line)
Backward LSP for Segment Protection Domain2 is LSR3-
LSR2-LSR1 (dotted lines)
Backward LSP for Segment Protection Domain3 is LSR5-
LSR4-LSR3 (dashed lines) 
We can apply any type of protection mechanism inside an
SPD, independent of other SPDs. To describe the approach,
consider a fault in the link LSR0-LSR1 inside SPD1. When
we use link protection mechanism, the restoration is provided
by LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR1.When we use path protection
mechanism, the restoration is provided by LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-
LSR1.
We can use similar mechanisms to SPD2 for a fault in the
link LSR1 - LSR2. If we use link protection mechanism,
LSR1-LSR7-LSR8-LSR2-LSR3 provides the restoration for
Segment Protection Domain2. If we use path protection
mechanism, LSR1-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-LSR3 provides the
restoration for Segment Protection Domain2.
We can use similar mechanisms to SPD3 for a fault in the
link LSR3 – LSR4. If we use link protection mechanism,
LSR3-LSR9-LSR10-LSR4-LSR5 provides the restoration for
Segment Protection Domain3.If we use path protection
mechanism, LSR3-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 provides the
restoration for Segment Protection Domain3.
In the case of SPD3, the mechanism of path protection
establishes a short length recovery path than the mechanism
for link protection.
The OGAP for single failure combines the mechanism for
path protection with the mechanism for segment protection,
together with local restoration mechanisms which use the pre-
established alternative LSP for protected LSPs of the complete
MPLS network.The segment protection for each Segment
Protection Path functions in association with pre-established
alternative LSP, if the pre-established alternative LSP for
complete MPLS network is already is formed.This is because
the recovery path for the complete MPLS network is
established by joining of all the three Segment Protection
Domain recovery paths. The initial point of coincidence for
both the segment protection domain of each segment and the
path protection for the entire MPLS network becomes the
combining point for the traffic along the rerouted path by each
SPD into the pre-established recovery LSP. This mechanism
makes use of link or path protection inside the SPD in
forwarding the data to the egress LSR (LSR5) of the complete
MPLS network rather than carrying it to the respective SPD
egress LSR.
We shall implement OGAP scheme to the example in Figure.
When the link LSR0 -LSR1 is failed, the data is redirected by
LSR0 making use of the recovery path of SPD1. The initial
point of coincidence of the recovery path of Segment Path
Domain 1 (LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR1) and the pre-established
recovery path for the complete MPLS network LSR0-LSR6-
LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 is LSR0.From this point of
coincidence, the packets redirected by Segment Path Domain1
make use of pre-established recovery LSP. So, LSR0-LSR6-
LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 forms the alternative path
for the complete MPLS network. If the link between LSR1
and LSR2 fails in Segment Protection Domain2, applying the
same approach, the point of coincidence of LSR1-LSR7-
LSR8-LSR9-LSR3 and LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-
LSR10-LSR5 is LSR7. So, LSR0-LSR1-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-
LSR10-LSR5 forms the alternative path for the complete
MPLS network. Lastly, if the link fails between LSR3-LSR4,
the initial point of coincidence of the recovery paths LSR3-
LSR9-LSR-10-LSR5 of Segment Protection Domain3, and
LSR0-LSR6-LSR7-LSR8-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 is LSR9. So,
LSR0-LSR1-LSR2-LSR3-LSR9-LSR10-LSR5 forms the
alternative path for entire MPLS network.(see Table)
 Besides delay, the restoration path length indicates the
Table 1: Comparative Analysis of length of recovery path measure of resources needed to protect an LSP.
for single failed link of MPLS protection domain (from
ingress LSR0 to egress LSR5) In table2, we present the length of recovery path length using
link protection, path protection and OGAP for the complete
Faulty Link Link Path OGAP MPLS network (end-to-end) for multiple faulty links on the
Protection Protection basis of the network scenario we considered. By observing it,
within SPD OGAP scheme for multiple links requires 6 links only for a
LSR0-LSR1 0-6-7-1-2-3- 0-6-7-8-9-10- 0-6-7-8-9-10- restoration LSP, which has better performance compared to
in SPD1 4-5 (8 links) 4-5 (8 links) 5 (7 links) the path and link recovery mechanisms individually. We have
LSR1-LSR2 0-1-7-8-2-3- 0-1-7-8-9-3- 0-1-7-8-9-10- the working LSP length is 5 links.We can notice here that the
in SPD2 4-5 (8 links) 4-5 (8 links) 5 (7 links) length of restoration path in OGAP is just one link extra
LSR3-LSR4 0-1-2-3-9-10- 0-1-2-3-9-10- 0-1-2-3-9-10- compared to working LSP.
in SPD3 4-5 (8 links) 5 (7 links) 5 (7 links) We measure the percentage of packet loss and packet disorder
In the network, the actual length of working path end-to-end is using OMNeT++ tool.We simulate MPLS protection domain
5 links (LSR0-LSR1-LSR2-LSR3-LSR4-LSR5).In the above using Tknev tool of OMNeT++.The true performance of path
table, we compared the restoration path length between the restoration schemes is provided by the simulation by using a
ingress node and the egress node for a single faulty link. By file to plot the variables like packet loss, re-ordering, and
using the OGAP scheme for single failure we can provide a repetition. The file containing parameters to a plot is created
short alternative path length in comparison with other by programming in C++.The results are shown below:
schemes.It is better to implement the combination of segment
protection and path protection than to implement segment or
path protection individually.
For Multiple Link Failures:

The OGAP for multiple failures works similar to that of the

single failure.The OGAP for single failure can be extended to
propose OGAP for multiple failures.On the basis of segment
protection method, if the complete protected path is protected
from a faulty link in each Segment Protection Domain (i.e.,
more than one faulty link in working path), the length of
restoration path will increase because of repetition of the path
or link protection in SPDs.We observe the increase of
restoration path length if link recovery scheme is used.But, the
length of the restoration path will not be increased always if
path recovery scheme is used. The recovery path length of the
protection path is a major quantitative measurement of the
standard of a protection scheme. The length of recovery path
indicates the delay experienced by the redirected packets upon
a link failure. The above graph gives the results for multiple failures(2-3 and
4-5) when applied both of path protection with segment
Table2: Comparative Analysis of length of restoration protection. We can observe the packet loss of OGAP is zero,
path of multiple failed links for MPLS protection domain but 20% for Haskin Scheme and 55% for Makam's
Scheme.The re-ordering of packets in Haskin's Scheme is
Faulty links Link Path OGAP reduced to zero in the case of proposed OGAP.
Protection Protection
LSR1-LSR2 0-1-7-8-2-3- 0-1-7-8-9-3- 0-1-7-8-9-
and LSR3- 9-10-4-5 (10 9-10-3 (9 10-5 (7 links) VI . CONCLUSION:
LSR4 in links) links) . A long restoration time is the main problem of a dynamic
SPD2 and restoration scheme.To overcome this problem OGAP uses
SPD3 updated network information at the time of recovery to the
LSR0- 0-6-7-1-7-8- 0-6-7-1-7-8- 0-6-7-8-9- pre-established alternate LSP.This is possible by combining
LSR1,LSR1- 2-3-9-10-4-5 9-3-9-10-5 10-5 (7 links) the advantages of Fast Rerouting and Reliable and Fast
LSR2 and (12 links) (11 links) Rerouting.In addition to this, OGAP gives a guarantee of
LSR 3-LSR4
in recovery LSP at all times for the working LSP. OGAP also
SPD1,SPD2 provides protection of recovery LSP after the packets are
and SPD3 rerouted.OGAP considers multiple failures on an LSP and
gives shortest possible restoration path length and also the
failure of the new protected LSP.It also considers the
reversion operation.Reversion consists of redirecting the
packets from the recovery LSP to the primary protected LSP
after the failure becomes operational again.OGAP can be
deployed for recovery in high traffic MPLS networks to
achieve optimal performance.
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