Dynamic load distribution in MPLS networks

Abstract

Exploiting the efficient explicit routing capability of MPLS, we propose a dynamic multipath traffic engineering mechanism named LDM(Load Distribution over Multipath). The main goal of LDM is to enhance the network utilization as well as the network performance by adaptively splitting traffic load among multiple paths. LDM makes decisions at the flow level, and distribute traffic based on both the length and the load of a path. LDM also dynamically selects a number of good Label Switched Paths (LSPs) for traffic delivery according to the state of the entire network. We use simulation to compare the performance of LDM with the performance of several representative dynamic load distribution approaches as well as the traditional static shortest path only routing. The numerical results show that LDM outperforms the compared approaches in both the blocking ratio as well as the performance of the accepted traffic flows. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.