Upstream node initiated fast restoration in MPLS networks

MPLS is a promising technology that enables much faster failure recovery than conventional IP rerouting in IP networks. Path-based and link-based restoration schemes have been proposed to protect connections against single link failure in MPLS networks. While path-based scheme is capacity efficient, it is relatively slow in restoration; on the other hand, while link-based scheme has fast restoration speed, it´s capacity efficiency is low. In this paper, we propose a new restoration scheme called UNIFR, which can provide fast restoration as link-based scheme while achieving better capacity efficiency than link-based scheme. We present a MPLS resilience framework that supports UNIFR and give two ILP formulations to solve the spare capacity optimization problem for UNIFR-based restoration model. Simulation study shows that the capacity efficiency of UNIFR-based model is much better than that of link-based model and close to that of path-based model.