Consistently meeting SLAs can be a challenge to service providers due to physical network element failures like link and node failures, hardware and software upgrades, and necessary changes in network topology in order to meet customer needs.

Current approaches to handling link and node failures include ECMP, MPLS Fast Reroute, SONET APS, BFD, among others. These approaches are useful in specific topologies but come with limitations when applied to other topology scenarios.

RAPID addresses the protection needs of the most widely found production networks running IP and LDP for growing applications like VoIP, internet gaming and real-time downloads, and VPNs which are progressively being supported by native IP and MPLS LDP based networks.

This presentation aims to discuss the following topics:

• Introduction
  • The changing face of applications in the carrier infrastructure.
  • The impact of these new applications on convergence times in IP networks.
• Wide-reaching benefits of link and node protection coverage by RAPID across topology variations and application diversity in the context of other current approaches.
• RAPID architecture
  • Determination of Alternate Paths between Source-Destination Pairs
  • Ability to achieve sub-50 ms recovery times for failed links and/or failed nodes.
  • Type of Alternates and their Use
• Loop-Free Link-Protecting Alternates
• Loop-Free Node-Protecting Alternates
• U-Turn Link-Protecting Alternates
• U-Turn Node-Protecting Alternates
• Standardization work done/in progress
  • Related active IETF drafts
  • Future developments and use of RAPID in a traffic engineered environment