MPLS Fundamentals

Requirements of MPLS OAM

The requirements of MPLS OAM are the following:

• Detection and diagnosis of control and data plane defects

• Detection of a defect in a label switched path (LSP)

• OAM packets flowing on the same path as MPLS data traffic

• Path characterization

• Measurement of SLAs

• OAM Interworking

• MIBs

• Accounting

The following sections explain in detail what these requirements entail.

Detection and Diagnosis of Control and Data Plane Defects

Common problems for MPLS networks are packets arriving at a label switching router (LSR) with a specific top label for which the LSR has no forwarding information or incorrect forwarding information. This problem can be detected by the control information that Label Distribution Protocol (LDP), Resource Reservation ...