Routing and MPLS Traffic Engineering

Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) merges the control protocols available at layer three and the speed of operations available at layer two of an IP network. There are two types of router in an MPLS network. The MPLS routers at the periphery are called label edge routers (LERs), and the routers inside the MPLS cloud create the MPLS backbone and are known as label switched routers (LSRs). Wang et al. proposed an algorithm for setting up bandwidth‐guaranteed paths for MPLS traffic engineering (TE), which is based on the concept of critical links, the degree of their importance, and their contribution in routing future path setup requests. Thus, the algorithm essentially belongs to the class of minimum interference algorithms. The most influential online routing algorithm in TE is the minimum interference routing algorithm (MIRA). The algorithm is targeted towards applications such as the setting up of labeled switched paths (LSPs) in MPLS networks.