MITIGATING THE TRAFFIC CONGESTION USING MPLS ROUTING TOWARDS GREATER EFFICIENCY IN AN IP BASED NETWORK

Abstract

This paper focuses on application of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) as a viable scheme of controlling internet traffic for greater efficiency and reliability. Graphical Network Simulator (GNS3) is utilized in the design and simulation of three different IP network routing scenarios: a network utilizing Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), one implementing both OSPF and Multi-Protocol Layer Switching (MPLS) and a network employing OSPF, MPLS and MPLS-Engineering (MPLS-TE). Performance comparison of different cases of IP routing in these networks are determined via throughput time of packets that traverse the network. Time taken for packets to traverse MPLS implemented network is shorter than that of OSPF based network. For example, the throughput times of OSPF only network for three, four and five routers network are, respectively, 64 68and 44 ms, while the corresponding throughput times  in MPLS network are 56, 52 and 40 ms, respectively. In addition to that, the traffic in MPLS-TE network is easily routed through a pre-determined path without conflict, thus ensuring other internet traffics are shipped across the network un-hindered. It is shown that MPLS network addresses the challenges of internet service traffic by reducing the throughput time and allowing prioritizing of packets as they traverse the network routers.