A Performance Study of IP and MPLS Traffic Engineering Techniques Under Traffic Variations

In this paper, a quantitative study of the benefits and shortcomings of IP and MPLS traffic engineering techniques under realistic traffic variation scenarios is presented. While both techniques can achieve similar degree of optimization under steady state conditions, our simulation results show the impact on each when realistic traffic variations are induced in the network. A detailed simulator has been developed to facilitate the study, and several new metrics of interest are analyzed to present a novel point of view.