Chapter Summary and Review

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In the industry today, we find that, while Cisco and Juniper favor the RSVP-TE model and Nortel favors the CR-LDP model, both signaling protocols are supported by most vendors.

The jury is still very much out as to the scalability, recovery, and interoperability between the signaling protocols; however, it appears from the sidelines that the RSVP-TE protocol may be in the lead. This is not because it is the less “chatty” or the more robust of the two; it is due more to the fact that RSVP was an established protocol, with most of its bugs removed, prior to the inception of MPLS. Both protocols remain the topics of study by major universities and vendors. In the months to come, we will see test results and market domination affect the continued emergence of these protocols.

Knowledge Review 

Answer the following questions.

1. What signaling protocol was designed to request the required bandwidth and traffic conditions on a defined or explained path?

2. What is one of the primary concerns in using RSVP-TE?

3. What is the primary advantage that hard-state signaling protocols offer over soft-state signaling protocols?

4. In RSVP, a “best-effort load” equates to which of the following classes of travel: first-class, second-class, or standby?

Answers: 1. Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP); 2. scalability; 3. greater potential in scalability; 4. standby.

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