Design of traffic engineered MPLS VPN for protected traffic using GNS simulator

Abstract

Multiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS) lends efficiency to very large networks, and is the most used transport technology for service provider networks to support multiple customers. Customers connected to a service provider's network demand for secure, reliable, private and ultra fast connections over the globe. This paper describes designing of MPLS VPN(Virtual Private Network) along with dedicated traffic tunneling for each VPN with the help of OSPF(Open Shortest Path First) and MP-BGP(Multi Protocol-Border Gateway Protocol) which helps in keeping the customers isolated, network manageable and reliable. It also includes path protection, mainly link and node protection in the MPLS network for failover functionality along with features like route reflectors for better efficiency. GNS(Graphical Network Simulator) software stack with VMware virtualization were chosen for this purpose, as these applications are well suited for emulation of real network environment. The resultant network obtained after this design is a real time solution to many problems and demands in today's service provider's network.