MPLS has been around for over two decades and is the cornerstone of Service Provider Networks and many enterprise, utility and federal networks. MPLS delivers mission-critical applications and services. Segment Routing has taken the stage to replace MPLS because it accomplishes the same as MPLS but is less complex, extremely robust and can be scaled without limitations. This lab will introduce you to the basics of Segment Routing.

Organizations rely on MPLS on multiple platforms to deliver mission-critical applications and services. Segment Routing is the next-generation evolution of traditional MPLS, and here we look at SR-MPLS and Traffic Engineering. We will perform distributed Traffic Engineering computations from the headend routers and utilize an SR PCE for centralized traffic engineering.

There is a movement in the industry to combine the optical network and the routed network, with Cisco leading the charge. The architecture is known as RON, Routed Optical Networks. With the RON architecture, the services that Optical Engineers are accustomed to delivering within the optical network are now provided via the routed network. Services such as site-to-site traffic demand, path selection, and path protection. With this shift in architecture, there is a growing requirement for optical engineers’ expertise to span both optical and routing. This lab is designed to demonstrate how the routed network delivers these services and how to configure a basic RON network using Segment Routing.

Service providers and other large organizations rely on MPLS on multiple platforms to deliver mission-critical applications and services. Segment Routing is the next-generation technology that replaces MPLS, and here we look at SR-MPLS along with an advanced feature called Flexible Algorithm (Flex-Algo). Segment Routing with Flex-Algo enables the router to assign a user-defined algorithm to the IGP that is implemented dynamically and on-demand.

This lab demonstrates several components of Cisco's Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) to IP solution, including the purpose-built Network Convergence System (NCS-4200) and Aggregation Services Router (ASR-900).