Multi-Protocol Label Switching To Support Quality of Service Needs

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a technique that can be used to improve the performance of a computer communication network. By use of MPLS, data packets can be switched on the basis of labels rather than routed on the basis of destination address. MPLS supports different features like QoS, traffic engineering and VPNs etc. This thesis evaluates the working and performance of MPLS and its support for Quality of Service. QoS is required in the network when real time traffic is transported. In this thesis it is described, how QoS guarantees are assigned to the IP packets and how MPLS QoS environment differs from the traditional IP routing environment. MPLS QoS works as the IP QoS, but MPLS QoS enhances the capability of network as compared to the IP QoS based network. The thesis studies the use of MPLS in an integrated environment with DiffServ QoS model and also implements MPLS QoS in a Lab environment to compare MPLS QoS with IP QoS. Real time traffic faces longer delays in IP QoS based networks. MPLS QoS reduces the delays in real time traffic transmission. The study results and the practical implementations show that MPLS QoS provide much better results than simple IP QoS