Studying Case on SR-MPLS

Mohammed Elmadani
Department Of Networking and Telecommunication
University Of Misurata, Misurata, Libya
M09191141@it.misuratau.edu.ly

Abstract— MPLS network have become operation intensive SR-MPLS aims to overcome the issues associated with traditional
because of their complex implementations, dynamic label MPLS networks while also retaining the advantages of such
distribution protocols do not have the path computation capability networks.
and need to use IGPs to compute path, in addition, the control
planes of these protocols are complex, requiring devices to send a In this paper we will discuss Segment Routing MPLS
large number of messages to maintain peer and path status,
wasting link bandwidth and device resources, also the complex
II. SPECIAL FEATURES OF SR-MPLS
configuration of Traffic Engineering and lack of supporting load
balancing, Segment Routing it is a source-based routing
technology that enables IP/MPLS and IPV6 networks to run more SR-MPLS has emerged along with the SDN trend. It simplifies
simply and scale more easily. Segment Routing eliminates
networks and offers excellent extensibility, reflected mainly in the
Resource-heavy signaling protocols of MPLS and moves
intelligence to the source/edge of the traffic thus removing following aspects:
complexity from the network, SR is scalable because it does not Simpler control plane: Deploying LDP/RSVP-TE is not required.
rely on LDP/RSVP-TE, and there is no need of keeping thousands
Instead, devices need to use only IGP/BGP extensions for label
of labels in an LDP database. It avoids thousands of MPLS traffic
engineering LSPs in the network. distribution and synchronization. Alternatively, a controller is
Index Terms: MPLS, SR, SR-MPLS, LDP, Traffic used to uniformly distribute SR labels and deliver or synchronize
engineering, Segment Identifier. them to devices.
Easy-to-extend forwarding plane: SR-MPLS reuses the existing
I. INTRODUCTION MPLS forwarding plane, enabling network devices to support SR
forwarding through simple upgrades or even without any
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a data forwarding modification. In SR-MPLS, segments can be mapped to MPLS
technology that works between Layer 2 and Layer 3. Although labels, and paths can be considered as label stacks.
the MPLS forwarding plane is praised thanks to MPLS's label
switching concept, the MPLS control plane is criticized due to
defects such as complex protocols, poor extensibility, and
difficult deployment/maintenance. As the two major protocols
used in the MPLS control plane, Label Distribution Protocol
(LDP) and Resource Reservation Protocol-Traffic Engineering
(RSVP-TE) have some disadvantages.
LDP, which distributes labels based on IGP path computation
results, mainly has the following disadvantages:
 Because LDP depends on IGP but both protocols are
independent of each other, LDP-IGP asynchronization exists, Fig 1: Basic Idea of MPLS forwarding and control planes
resulting in traffic blackholing.
SR-MPLS offers the following benefits:
 LDP can forward traffic only through the shortest path and
does not support either traffic engineering or path planning.  Supports network path programming. Leveraging the
advantage of the source routing mechanism, SR-MPLS
Although RSVP-TE implements traffic engineering and enables the ingress to control a service path by merely
therefore supports flexible selection of forwarding paths based performing label operations on packets. In addition, transit
on service requirements, it also has the following significant nodes do not need to maintain path information, reducing the
disadvantages: pressure on the control plane.
 In addition to complex configuration and maintenance,  Simplifies the device control plane, reduces the number of
RSVP-TE involves complex protocol states and requires required routing protocols, and lowers O&M costs. In
devices to exchange many packets to maintain tunnel states, addition, the label forwarding table is simple and does not
making large-scale deployment difficult. contain a large number of labels, reducing the device resource
usage.
 RSVP-TE does not support load balancing, lowering network
resource utilization.  Enables smoother evolution to SDN networks. As an SDN-
oriented protocol, SR-MPLS integrates the advantages of both
independent forwarding and centralized programming control
 to better implement application-driven networks. Segment routing also preserves the notion of locally
Furthermore, it supports both traditional and SDN networks significant SIDs to allow for finer grained traffic
and is compatible with existing devices, ensuring smooth engineering. Adjacency SIDs are only locally significant to
evolution to SDN networks. each node and are advertised and installed only on directly
connected neighbors, thus identifying a specific adjacency
link. Adjacency SIDs are similar in nature to LDP assigned
labels, which are also only locally significant and installed
directly adjacent LDP peers. Adjacency SIDs can be used in
III. Segment Routing Operation
segment routing traffic engineered paths as an entry in the
order list, or label stack, specifying a specific link to
Segment routing divides the network into “segments” where traverse in the path.
each node and link could be assigned a segment identifier, or a
SID, which gets advertised by each node using standard A. Comparing Segment Routing to LDP
routing protocol extensions (ISIS/OSPF or BGP), eliminating Segment routing label distribution in the IGP and LDP
the need to run additional label distribution protocols. label distribution are similar in the sense that they are
These SIDs are either globally unique SIDs or locally both “plug and play”. Hence, they are easy to configure,
significant SIDs, The globally significant SIDs must be unique labels are automatically advertised amongst the routers
and can be assigned an absolute value from the Segment when an adjacency peering is formed and there are no
Routing Global Block (SRGB), that is advertised as a base value label switched paths (LSPs) to manually configure.
and label range. Alternatively, the SID value can be derived by Additionally, both LDP and SR form stateless MP2P
each node using an index value and adding this to the SRGB LSPs derived automatically for each node. It is this
base value. There are three major variants of a global SID: simplicity in deployment that made LDP popular and is
Prefix SID one reason segment routing is being adopted so readily.
– A segment identifier associated with a prefix.
Node SID This, however, is where the similarity ends.
Fundamentally, LDP relies on IGP state, and features
• segment identifier allocated to a loopback that
like the LDP-IGP sync were introduced so that they
identifies a specific node. This a commonly used sub- always remain in sync, reducing the possibility of
case of a prefix SID traffic blackholing. With label distribution directly done
Anycast SID by IGP, this issue is now moot. In segment routing,
• shared segment ID assigned to a loopback shared by a nodes and prefixes have globally unique labels assigned
set of routers. Again a commonly used sub-case of a throughout the domain, whereas in LDP, these labels
prefix SID are locally significant, assigned a unique value at every
Proxy SID hop. Global labels significantly reduce data plane state
• segment identifier associated with an IS-IS prefix at every network hop. Depending on vendor
originating from a router that does not support IS-IS implementation choices, an implementation with LDP
independent LSP control mode can proliferate
SR
unnecessary control and data plane state, resulting in
scaling challenges.
All nodes in the domain install the same value for the
B. Comparing Segment Routing to RSVP-TE
prefix SID. This notion of globally unique SIDs plays an
important role in reducing the data plane state explosion Traffic engineering and Fast re-route (FRR) are the main
across the nodes. This is illustrated below in the MPLS reasons that RSVP-TE is widely deployed in networks
data-plane example, where the unique prefix SID index today. It is the improved traffic engineering scalability
value for each node is flooded throughout the IGP and flexibility provided by segment routing while
domain. Using the same SRGB range, each node derives addressing some of the new SDN requirements that are
the same node SID label value for the remote nodes. The driving its adoption.
forwarding operations of push, swap and pop is also However, many deployments use statically configured
shown below. explicit paths using offline path computation tools with no
bandwidth reservation. In many deployments, FRR alone is
the reason to use RSVP-TE. RSVP-TE networks are built
using full mesh of point-to-point TE tunnels, which install
control and data plane state for every tunnel that originates,
transits or terminates at that network hop. There is also
inherently no leveraging of ECMP in the network.
Additionally, upon any failure in the core, the LSPs must be
re-signaled, causing churn and control-plane state change on
every device running RSVP-TE. These scalability issues,
along with limited coarse-grained flow control, have
plagued RSVP-TE.
Fig2: Node SID Signaling & Forwarding Using IGP Segment routing addresses some of these challenges by
taking an SDN-centric approach to traffic engineering. Instead
 of encapsulating the source routed explicit path in the control The following figure shows the major advantages of SR-MPLS
plane, it defines the traffic engineered path as a list of SIDs by comparing it with MPLS.
encapsulated in the data plane. Only the edge or ingress
routers (LERs) impose the traffic engineering path, as a stack
of MPLS labels, thereby leaving the core free of per flow
control plane state. SR-MPLS MPLS SR-MPLS
advantages
Any number of constraints or attributes can be used by the Control IGP/BGP LDP/RSVP- LDP/RSVP-TE
centralized controller to define the TE path, not just the Protocol TE/IGP/BGP is not used
limited set of attributes offered in RSVP-TE. To that end, making
network simpler
segment routing offers improved scalability and provides the and network
granular control required for traffic engineering in modern evolution
networks. smoother
Path Computation Computation Transit node do
Computation and adjustment and adjustment not need to
and only on the on each maintain path
adjustment ingress network node information
,reducing
pressure on
control plane
Label Reduce the Increase the Devices do not
Distribution device resource device resource occupy a large
usage usage number of
labels
Network Stateless MPLS TE is MPLS-TE are
Scalability protocol are connection not used,
Fig 3: Traffic Engineering in Segment Routing used, oriented facilitating
facilitating technology, to network
network maintain scaling.
V: Comparing SR-MPLS to MPLS scaling. connection
states, devices
SR-MPLS retains the advantages of the MPLS forwarding needs to
plane, enabling SR-MPLS to be directly applied to the existing exchange and
process
MPLS architecture. In addition, SR-MPLS revolutionizes numerous
traditional MPLS technologies. keepalive
The key advantages of segment routing include: packets,
• label distribution protocol is eliminated from the straining the
control plane
requirement, making the implementation simpler and Network SR-MPLS MPLS supports SR-MPLS
reducing risk in day-to-day operations and management of architecture supports both traditional complies with
the network. traditional and networks, but SDN concept
SDN network, does not comply and provide a
• Simplified configuration and more plug and play and is with the SDN balance
capabilities similar to LDP is one of the huge benefits of compatible with concept between
segment routing. the existing centralize
• Segment routing offers a solution that can scale far beyond devices control and
distributed
current traffic engineering solutions control.
• One of the biggest enablers for the adoption of segment
routing in present-day networks is the support for MPLS.
MPLS data plane is not only well understood and deployed Comparison between SR-MPLS and MPLS
but offers some inherent attributes like source routing with MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) has been in use
an MPLS label stack and support for MPLSoGRE to tunnel worldwide for 20+ years by service providers, enterprises,
MPLS over IP fabric. Plus, MPLS forwarding capabilities government agencies, and more. Traditionally used in the core,
are prevalent in commodity merchant silicon chips, making extending the MPLS network to aggregation and even the edge
it very attractive to cloud and service providers. of the network is becoming common. It provides a platform for
service delivery with features that are not possible with IP
• Segment routing provides Topology Independent Loop
routing alone, such as L2 and L3 VPNs.
Free Alternate (TI-LFA) as its main solution for FRR.
According to a recent study, 93 percent of enterprises currently
Compared to LDP, there are no targeted LDP sessions to
use cloud-based software, and it only took a year for the
manage and maintain with segment routing. Unlike LDP, it
number of hybrid cloud systems to jump from mere 19 percent
provides failure coverage even in ring or complicated
to 57 percent. But migrating to the cloud is only the first step.
partial-mesh topologies.
To harness the full benefits of SaaS applications requires
• Because the transit routers simply forward the packets
integrating the cloud data with a robust network architecture. A
based on the SR segment identifier (SID), SR can be used
requirement that cannot be met with MPLS.
to map packets associated with an end user or application to
Cloud services do not work well with a closed network like
specific network function services. It does this by mapping
MPLS either. IT teams responsible for branch-office
a path to where the service will be applied, and providing
productivity are looking to open up and access cloud services
instructions about the service and additional path
directly in order to ensure a good user experience and to avoid
information from the service gateway to the SR domain
the trombone effect.
egress router.
 VI: Conclusion

When looking to the fast growth of the technologies

specifically in networking field and cloud computing
evolution, older technologies such as MPLS are not in good
terms with newer technologies which requires simplicity and
scalability and high performance MPLS will not satisfies these
requirement because of all theses disadvantages that we
discuss about spatially Label Distribution Protocol and
Resource Reservation Protocol and traffic engineering RSVP-
TE, addition it does not do will with SDN concept, all these
problems has been solved with the appearance of Segment
Routing SR which has change the way we think about IP
networking.

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