Multiprotocol Label Switching for the Federal Government

Service providers (SPs), enterprise, and federal customers are migrating from existing ATM, Frame Relay (FR), and Time Division Multiplex (TDM) infrastructures to an IP-based backbone. In the federal marketplace, this transition is under way for applications that service current e-government initiatives. In the Department of Defense (DoD) and the intelligence community (IC), there is a move toward the Netcentric Warfighter and next-generation (NG) IP applications. In each agency, the IP network is the key to providing these advanced services and applications.

As IP continues to evolve, so do the applications. Current IP backbones can no longer be designed to transport only IP packets. Instead, NG IP backbones must be capable of providing multiple IP services over a single physical infrastructure, using techniques such as quality of service (QoS) and security services. In addition, NG IP backbones should provide Layer 2/3 VPNs, IP multicast, IPv6, and granular traffic-engineering capabilities. Ultimately, these IP backbones should be scalable and flexible enough to support the mission-critical, time-sensitive applications that the federal government requires, and to meet new demands for applications, services, and bandwidth. Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), when used on an IP backbone, provides the mechanism to offer rich IP service and transport capabilities to the router infrastructure.

This paper describes the architecture model being used to deploy NG IP networks and details the value of MPLS as an IP service and consolidation enabler for building these NG networks. It explains the services MPLS offers, provides deployment examples of each, and demonstrates how federal IT organizations and agencies can benefit from using MPLS as a service enabler. The goal of this paper is to provide positioning input to federal organizations and agencies as they migrate to their NG IP core infrastructures.