Label Space Reduction Research Articles

An approach to support traffic engineering in IPv6 networks based on IPv6 facilities

IPv6 is an Internet protocol with the ability to provide a large number of addresses to allow the connectivity of each existing thing to the global network. It also allows the deployment of many technologies and services of the next generation. One of the major changes that occurred in the IP header with this new version is the addition of the IPv6 flow label field, which was created with the intention of labeling packets that belong to a particular flow to provide an appropriate treatment by routers. However, this field has not been widely exploited yet, and it is being set to zero in almost all IPv6 packets. The main Internet routing problem is that said routing is based on the shortest path algorithm, which leads to the possibility of some paths being congested while others are underused. To solve the congestion problem, many solutions aiming at traffic engineering support have been proposed, but this topic remains an open issue. This paper describes a new solution to support traffic engineering based on the usage of the IPv6 flow label for providing fast packet switching, which we have called PSA-TE6. In this document, we present the PSA-TE6 operation and evaluation regarding the label space reduction, label stacking cost and its minimization. The results show that PSA-TE6 is cheaper compared to the IP/MPLS solution when there is no label stacking, and that PSA-TE6 also outperforms IP/MPLS when the stacking is enabled until achieving a 40% presence of tunnels for encapsulation levels greater than 1.

Label space reduction based on LSP multiplexing in MPLS Openflow hybrid network

In MPLS network, each Label Switch Path (LSP) must be identified with a unique forwarding label in each network element. In recent years, with the continuous development of public cloud services, virtual private networks, and mobile computing, the label consumption in MPLS network is expanding rapidly, leading to increased management complexity, expanded ISP operational and capital expenditure, more router table look-up latency, and reduced network performance as well as scalability. To solve these problems, the label space reduction problem (LASPARED) has been presented and studied to optimize the planning of LSPs in MPLS network, so that the number of labels used in the network can be minimized. Label merging and tunneling are two main ways to solve this problem. However, both of the methods have limitations and need to be further improved. In this paper, different from merging and tunneling, we propose a third way to solve LASPARED problem in an MPLS Openflow hybrid network scheme: LSP multiplexing. With the network programmability and packet-editing capability provided by Openflow, we use label stacking and TTL to control packet switching between different LSPs, so that traffics with different source and destination may be able to share the same LSP. Analysis and simulations show that, compared with merging and tunneling, our method can achieve the best label reduction effect as well as the least number of LSPs regardless of topology structures.

Improving Quality of Service by Label Space Reduction in Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Networks

Label Switching in Multi-Protocol Label Switching Networks is a most researched area in recent years. Many techniques have been proposed and implemented and their merits and demerits have been considered. Label Space Reduction is an issue which directly affects the quality of service of the MPLS network. The aim of the work is to design a network which optimizes the quality of service parameters like packet delivery ratio and throughput of the network. In many previous works tunnels are created which deals in only one label for the tunnel instead of swapping labels at each Label Switch Router (LSR). But the entry and exit points inside the tunnel are fixed which makes it difficult for the packets to enter and exit the tunnels. Also the packets entering will have to exit at fixed point and then it follows some other route to reach the destination which only increases the end to end delay and the packet drop in the network. In our proposed approach LCS algorithm is used to find the length of the tunnel according to the number of Label Switched Paths (LSPs) so that the packet can enter into the tunnel and exit at any point in the tunnel. Also each LSR maintains a table so that it tracks the labels which are assigned to the packets entering the tunnel and exiting at any point over the length of the tunnel. This technique results in the reduced number of packets lost in the network and also delay is reduced thus improving the throughput of the network. The results shown in the coming sections also proves the approach and the labels are significantly reduced along with the improvement of other performance parameters like throughput of the network, end to end delay and the packet delivery ratio.

Dependence maximization based label space dimension reduction for multi-label classification

High dimensionality of label space poses crucial challenge to efficient multi-label classification. Therefore, it is needed to reduce the dimensionality of label space. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, called dependence maximization based label space reduction (DMLR), which maximizes the dependence between feature vectors and code vectors via Hilbert–Schmidt independence criterion while minimizing the encoding loss of labels. Two different kinds of instance kernel are discussed. The global kernel for DMLRG and the local kernel for DMLRL take global information and locality information into consideration respectively. Experimental results over six categorization problems validate the superiority of the proposed algorithm to state-of-art label space dimension reduction methods in improving performance at the cost of a very short time.

Rendezvous Multicast: A Novel Architecture for MPLS QoS Multicast

IP multicast and MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) are proposed to support emerging network applications effectively, extending current IP routing and switching mode in different ways. It is still in progress to combine IP multicast with MPLS properly. In this paper, a novel architecture, called Rendezvous MPLS Multicast, is proposed to support IP multicast in MPLS networks and to have the scalability of multicast routing, to achieve the label space reduction, and to solve some practical problems in implementation. A two-layered structure of control plane without multicast routing protocols is implemented by overlaying novel service control plane over the existing routing control plane to support multicast state aggregate. The interface between the two planes is formulated to support the interaction and cooperation. Moreover, the label distribution process for MPLS P2MP (point to multi-point) connection, with RSVP-TE (resource reservation protocol-traffic engineering) protocol, is extended to support aggregate of multiple label switching paths with traffic engineering and guarantee of quality of service. An algorithm of selecting Rendezvous Routers for Rendezvous MPLS Multicast has been presented. A test-bed with Linux-based implementations of MPLS multicast router and IP multicast service control system has also been constructed. The experimental results show its efficiency in terms of label space reduction and multicast traffic balancing, with the whole system adapting to the dynamic change of group members and network topology.

Label Space Reduction in MPLS Networks: How Much Can A Single Stacked Label Do?

Most network operators have considered reducing LSR label spaces (number of labels used) as a way of simplifying management of underlaying Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and therefore reducing operational expenditure (OPEX). The IETF outlined the label merging feature in MPLS-allowing the configuration of MultiPoint-to-Point connections (MP2P)-as a means of reducing label space in LSRs. We found two main drawbacks in this label space reduction scheme: a it should be separately applied to a set of LSPs with the same egress LSR--which decreases the options for better reductions, and b LSRs close to the edge of the network experience a greater label space reduction than those close to the core. The later implies that MP2P connections reduce the number of labels asymmetrically. In this article we propose a solution to these drawbacks achieved by stacking an additional label onto the packet header. We call this type of reduction Asymmetric Merged Tunnels (AMT). A fast framework for computing the optimal reduction using AMTs is proposed. Our simulations show that the label space can be reduced by up to 20% more than when label merging is used.

Full label space reduction in MPLS networks: asymmetric merged tunneling

Traffic Engineering objective is to optimize network resource utilization. Although several works have been published about minimizing network resource utilization in MPLS networks, few of them have been focused in LSR label space reduction. This letter studies Asymmetric Merged Tunneling (AMT) as a new method for reducing the label space in MPLS network. The proposed method may be regarded as a combination of label merging (proposed in the MPLS architecture) and asymmetric tunneling (proposed recently in our previous works). Finally, simulation results are performed by comparing AMT with both ancestors. They show a great improvement in the label space reduction factor.