Design and
Implementation of MPLS VPN in a Service Provider Network
GROUP MEMBER’S NAMES
Khurrum Masood
2001-CE-304
Irfan Azher
2001-CE-310
Muhammed Aurengzeb
2001-CE-302
Samea Batool
2001-CE-329
Final Year Project Proposal
Submitted to
Department of Computer Engineering
Design and
Implementation of Multi-protocol Label Switching VPN
1. Motivation
Within every
organization, IT infrastructures have taken on a strategic role and in most cases
it has provided competitive advantages for companies involved in the technology
sector. Specifically, a company's network has become the backbone of this IT
infrastructure as it provides access to data and information generated by the
company's operations. However, just as information has become a vital resource
in any company, protecting this information has also become a top priority for
IT managers. The explosion of the Internet and the expansion of networks has
dramatically increased the number of users who can access a company's network
both inside and outside the organization and this is the stage where we need
VPN.
There are several
motivations for building VPN’s, but a common thread
in each is that they all share the requirement to “ virtualize”
some portion of an organization’s communications – in other words, make some
portion (or perhaps all) of the communications essentially“ invisible” to
external observers, while taking advantage of the efficiencies of a common
communications infrastructure.
In response to this,
the second motivation for VPN’s is that of
communications privacy, where the characteristics and integrity of
communications services within one closed environment is isolated from all
other environments which share the common underlying plant. MPLS is the most
advanced Technology to implement VPN to make the communication secure, fast,
less overhead, it introduces the term
MPLS VPN. This is the objective of our project.
2. Overview
2.1 Significance of project
In VPN there are many protocols to implement
security but those protocols result in causing the overhead in routers. MPLS is
a secure, fast and reliable protocol that results in less overhead on routers.
The design and implementation of MPLS VPN is a complex task as it involves the
complete knowledge MPLS protocol as well as different VPN technologies. MPLS
VPN is an advanced technology that has very few implementations in
2.2 Description of project
MPLS is essentially a labeling system designed to
accommodate multiple protocols. The use of MPLS labels enables routers to avoid
the processing overhead of delving deeply into each packet and performing
complex route lookup operations based upon destination IP addresses.
MPLS VPNs do not rely upon encapsulation and
encryption. An MPLS VPN relies upon forwarding tables and tagging of packets to
create a secure VPN. All of the intelligence for an MPLS VPN resides in the InternetConnect network.
2.3 Background of project
Multi-Protocol
Label Switching (MPLS) is a new technology that will be used by many future
core networks, including converged data and voice networks. MPLS does not
replace IP routing, but will work alongside existing and future routing
technologies to provide very high speed data forwarding between Label-Switched
Routers (LSRs) together with reservation of bandwidth
for traffic flows with differing Quality of Service (QoS)
requirements. MPLS enhances the services that can be provided by IP networks,
offering scope for Traffic Engineering, guaranteed QoS
and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The basic operation of an MPLS network is
shown in the figure1
Figure1. Two LSPs in an MPLS Network
http://www.dataconnection.com/network/download/whitepapers/crldprsvp.pdf
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/iosw/prodlit/mxinf_ds.pdf
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/iosw/prodlit/iosmq_qp.pdf
3. Methodology
Multi-protocol Label Switching is an emerging
Internet Engineering Task Force standard for scaling the Internet. MPLS performs
this task by attaching "labels" to IP packets. The labels enable
routers and switches to forward traffic based on information in the labels,
rather than inspecting the different fields deep within each and every packet.
The less time devices spend inspecting traffic, the
more time they have to forward it.
To date, MPLS has been marketed as a method by which
service providers can engineer the traffic in their networks and offer IP
services, such as virtual private networks (VPN) and quality-of-service (QoS)-based offerings
3.1 Design phase
Traditional VPNs rely on an encapsulation
(tunneling) and encryption model to securely transport data between two
locations. The IPSec protocol is an example of one of the most widely used
protocols for VPNs today. This type of VPN is an overlay of point-to-point
tunnels on top of an existing IP network.
Unlike traditional VPNs, MPLS VPNs do not rely upon
encapsulation and encryption. An MPLS VPN relies upon forwarding tables and
tagging of packets to create a secure VPN. All of the intelligence for an MPLS
VPN resides in the InternetConnect network.
In Design phase first we will try to design a MPLS
Architecture configuration suitable to
our network environment and capable of forwarding tables and tagging of packets
then we will design a VPN which will work on that MPLS environment for secureing our network and to provide communication privacy.
A custom made software will be developed to
demonstrate the labels and working of the MPLS. The software will analyze different
fields of the MPLS header and other headers for helping in demonstration of the
project.
3.2 Implementation phase
The MPLS VPNs will be implemented on the router and
will be hardware based.
3.3 Testing phase
After the implementation phase of the MPLS VPN the
test we be done by analyzing the packets through a custom developed software
and by routing different protocols data over MPLS VPN and by inspecting the
packet labels