MPLS Traffic Engineering in OSPF Networks - a combined Approach
Stefan Köhler and Andreas Binzenhöfer
Research Report 304
Abstract
In this research report we investigated possibility of combining common
network technologies like IGP and MPLS to a Traffic Engineering
system. We introduced a fast linear optimization approach for MPLS
networks, with a remarkable objective function for TE and compared
default, optimized OSPF routing and MPLS TE and to reveal the
advantages of MPLS TE. The proposed overlay model consisting of a
mix of the OSPF and the MPLS routing scheme reduces the state
space and offers simplified configuration for network operators.
In general, our routing optimization works well for a given
traffic distribution. However, the real internet traffic is not
static but varies over time. The quality of our result, applied to
varying traffic demands, still has to be investigated. This leads
to the question of how to compare two different routing schemes in
general and also of how to evaluate the quality of a routing
decision. In our work the results were compared mainly by the
average and maximum link utilizations of sample networks. To
deploy a more general approach to evaluate routing strategies
independent from the network would be a fascinating but difficult
task. And last but not least, the influence of different traffic
classes and QoS would be an interesting point to investigate in
detail, as well.