Hi,
I'm new in this forum and don't know if it's the right place to ask this question. If not, please point me to the right discussion list.
Implementing MPLS in an IP network may be not too complicated but when thinking about the reason of migration and benefits, you end up with several reasons not always compatible because each reason comes from some different needs and applications.
For example i'm thinking of a good way to implement VoD on an IP network. Then i'll need some CAC system in order to control resources and to not degrade already established VoD sessions. The best standard choice seems to be RSVP.
Now, although i could use RSVP on a plain IP network (preferably with DiffServ rather than IntServ for scalability reasons), MPLS can bring me some other advantages like aggregation of many VoD sessions in few LSPs. They are clearly other MPLS advantages also like traffic engineering with RSVP.
As you see i've introduced many features/protocols that i'll need (not all for a single purpose, i recognize) but i'm wondering if all these things can interwork in a single network and this is exactly my problem. (If similar discussions took place anywhere in the web i'd be happy to be pointed to).
There are various interworking scenarii . For example, one could geographically partition the network into regions with/without each protocol but this is not the most interesting (nor practical) one.
Another scenario could be to implement on each router, a set of protocols on one interface and another set of protocols on another and so on. For example, one interface could have MPLS enabled while another one still working on plain IP routing. This is also a simple scenario and most likely will work.
But how about enabling on all routers and on all of their interfaces all protocols and decide by a policy mechanism to treat some flows with some protocols. Clearly, i want on a single interface : some flows to be label-switched with LDP, some flows to be natively routed, some flows to be label-switched on LSPs established by RSVP, some flows to be natively routed for which RSVP previousely reserved some resources, and some flows to be label-switched on Traffic Engineered tunnels
Is this possible or am i just day dreaming ?
Obviousely each protocol has its own advantages and i'm not arguing at all on pros & cons of them (that could be another discussion). I need MPLS for different reasons (RFC 2547bis/VPLS services, ...), i need RSVP for CAC, i need LDP because it's simple and automatique, i need TE for load balancing and iBGP full mesh problem and i need plain IP routing because it simply works and i can't afford the risk to migrate everything in one night.
I can however delay implementation of some features and/or decide to not enable a protocol if it's not compatible with other more interesting ones.
Any help and idea would be grately appreciated. thanks anouch