Performance Analysis of the Impact on Both the use of Redundant Equipment and Link Failure Repair Paths in Convergence Mobile IP Transactions Utilizing MPLS M. Asante and R. S. Sherratt Signal Processing Laboratory, School of Systems Engineering, The University of Reading, UK Abstract - High availability of IP/MPLS networks is a prerequisite to offer reliable and profitable carrier-class services and also enhances convergence where voice, video and data are transmitted along the same medium. A well-designed network element, such as a router, facilitates the building of highly available networks and reduces the capital expenditure and operational expenditure associated with redundant network infrastructures. An effective network design seeks to satisfy service reliability and availability objectives at the minimum network equipment and operational cost and will fully improve a Convergent Mobile Internet Protocol (MOIP) transmissions. The use of redundant hardware components, including line cards, switching fabric, control processor cards, physical interfaces and link failure repairs reduces unplanned hardware-related downtime. This paper discusses three types of redundancy schemes and the effect of link failures on prioritized and non prioritized routes. In particular, this paper outlines mechanisms for reducing network downtime in Mobile IP transactions. Keywords: Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Internet Protocol (IP), Mobile Internet Protocol (MOIP), Quality of Service (QoS), Convergence 1. Introduction The availability of a backup or “redundant” component in the event of a component failure will prevent the loss of service and be provided via software, hardware, or combination of the two. Network-level fault tolerance relies on software or hardware to quickly detect the failure and switch to a known backup path/link. The backup paths may be provided at multiple transport layers, including Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM), Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH), and Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). Mobile IP (MOIP) enables users to keep the same IP address regardless of its location in which case data packets can be re- routed if the user moves to a different position on the Internet. In the traditional way, IP tunneling is the method used by Home Agents (HAs) to transmit packets that are meant for a Mobile Node (MN) [1]. This method appears to be inefficient especially if more that one MN from the same HA but attached to different foreign networks are all transmitting or receiving signals. In this situation the Quality of Service (QoS) will be compromised in the transmission of voice, video and data through the tunnel since no priority is assigned to any particular type of data and also a failure of the ingress router to a home network will not work well for MOIP transmissions. As a result, there will be congestion loss of data and the Mobile Node will not be able to communicate with the Home Agent (HA). In effect MOIP convergence will be fully enhanced as a result of the implementation. The use efficient transfer of packets utilizing MPLS together with redundant equipments as a standby in case of failure will eliminate a lot of these shortfalls and enhance the transfer of voice, video and data. With MPLS, there are no permanent virtual connections between sites. Instead, secure and logical paths are set up through the network as and when there