MPLS: Technology and Applications (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking)

Coverage suffers a bit from a shortage of flow charts, state diagrams, and conceptual drawings. Readers are expected to decode some very long, very dense passages of text without assistance. On the other hand, they are assumed also to know relatively little. MPLS concepts that are probably new to most readers are explained carefully and connected to more familiar internetworking terms and concepts. This book deals with MPLS comprehensively, adequately preparing the network administrator to implement better traffic management. --David Wall

Topics covered: Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), treated comprehensively, both IP-switching and tag-switching approaches to label switching, and the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP). Quality of Service (QoS) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) coverage give the book some practical flavor.

Product Description

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is now a widely deployed technology, which addresses a variety of issues, including traffic engineering, Quality of Service, Virtual Private Networks, and IP/ATM integration. MPLS: Technology and Applications is the first book that provides a detailed analysis of the architecture, protocols, and application of MPLS.

Written by experts who personally authored key parts of the standard, this book will enable network operators and designers to determine which aspects of networks would benefit from MPLS. It is also a definitive reference for engineers implementing MPLS-based products.

* Covers major applications of MPLS: traffic engineering, VPNs, IP/ATM integration, and QoS
* Describes all the major protocols that comprise MPLS, including LDP, RSVP, and CR-LDP
* Goes beyond the RFCs to explain how and why key design decisions were made
* Provides a complete discussion of constraint-based routing

Almost everything you need to know about MPLS is covered in this book. The book is clearly structured and well organized and kept quite compact. The problems that led to the development of MPLS are very well explained, the introduction and chapter 2, the fundamental concepts, are clear and to the point. The following chapters, describing the two most important proprietary predecessors of MPLS are quite valuable for understanding some of the decisions that led to the definition of MPLS.

Unfortunately, the book is too theoretical and only gives an overview of the MPLS technology. Although the text is written quite well, more and better illustrations and diagrams and most of all some examples would help to understand the presented concepts much better. I admire every author that manages to write a book with 200-400 pages, but in this case I wish they would have covered some of the technical aspects, especially in the chapters about the MPLS core protocols and the QoS, in more detail.

Overall this is a good book that covers all of the important aspects of MPLS but some of the chapters are too theoretical and hard to understand without any illustrations and examples.