QoS Comparisons for MPLS and MPLS/DiffServ networks

Abstract

In the recent years, the Internet architecture has evolved, incorporating new technologies and adapting to the changing needs of its use. The introduction of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) as a part of the Internet forwarding architecture has immediate applications in traffic engineering (TE) and Quality of Service (QoS). It would be interesting to compare QoS performance of MPLS networks and MPLS/DiffServ networks, given their particular constraints. In this thesis, we evaluated the QoS performance measures such as delay variation, delay, page response time, throughput, utilization, and packet drop for different types of traffics (data, voice, and video) for both MPLS and MPLS/DiffServ platforms. The aim of this thesis is to compare the performance of MPLS and MPLS/DiffServ networks using the well known network simulator application “OPNET Modeler”. OPNET Modeler, v14.5, provides a platform to replicate a real world network scenario using latest simulation techniques, where different QoS parameters can be measured to compare networks performance. Our approach in this thesis is that, we have designed and built a National Carrier based core and edge network to simulate a real live scenario that spans the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Some of the results in the thesis are presented against simulation time and some against network load. The results of comparing and evaluating these two core networks (MPLS and MPLS/DiffServ) through well know QoS parameters show that complimenting MPLS by DiffServ give better results than MPLS alone. We have also examined different queuing polices of MPLS/DiffServ to have further understanding for this type of network and find the best polices. We test also the failover mechanism for MPLS/DiffServ, and see how the network recovers after fail through secondary LSP.