Multi-Protocol Label Switching Graduate Certificate

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is one of the most critical high-speed networking technologies. It is IP-compatible, provides quality of service (QoS) guarantee, and supports high-performance failure recovery. Combining intelligence, scalability, reliability and manageability together, MPLS enables the convergence of multiple protocols (such as IP, ethernet, ATM, frame relay) to the same backbone network. It is also the key technology to build scalable virtual private networks (VPNs) to support various applications.

Module: Fundamentals of Communication Networks

Participants will be able to:

• understand concepts of digital communication, circuit switching, packet switching, TDM and SONET communication protocols, ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP and applications, routing.

Module: The Evolution to MPLs Module

Participants will be able to:

• explore IP routing, ATM switching, MPLS, ethernet switching; Compare: Ethernet, IP, and MPLS.

Module: The MPLs Architecture

Participants will be able to:

• learn label allocation, next hop label forwarding entry, label-switched Path (LSP), explicit routing label stacking.

Module: Label Switching Router’s (LSRS) 

Participants will be able to:

• clearly leverage the basics of packet switch, table lookup (MAC table, IP table and MPLS label table), LSR.

Module: MPLs Labels

Participants will be able to:

• understand MPLS labels basics, label assignment and distribution, upstream and downstream LSR, label distribution: purpose, label distribution: protocols, label distribution: methods.

Module: Network Resilience

Participants will be able to:

• learn requirements on resilience, pathbased protection in MPLS, link-based protection in MPLS, failure recovery in IP networks.

Module: Virtual Private Networks

Participants will be able to:

• get an overview of VPNs, connection-oriented VPNs, connectionless VPNs, comparison of VPN technologies, MPLS VPN, advantages of MPLS VPNs, carrier ethernet and MPLS VPN.

Module: MPLs Traffic Engineering

Participants will be able to:

• explore the need for traffic engineering on the Internet, unequal-cost load balancing via metric manipulation, MPLS traffic engineering elements (dynamic/static LSPs) and MPLS traffic engineering configuration.

Module: MPLs Quality of Service

Participants will be able to:

• learn introduction to quality of service, integrated services, differentiated services, and MPLS QoS implementation.