Strategy-based path selection for traffic engineering over MPLS

The advantage of multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) is its capability to route the packets through explicit paths. And for traffic engineering over MPLS, the key is to select suitable paths to balance the network load to optimize network resource utilization and traffic performance. And from network carriers' point of view, such optimization should be based on their individual networks, service requirements as well as their own administrative policies. In this paper, we present a method to provide the capability to control traffic engineering so that the carriers can define their own strategies for optimizations and apply them to path selection for both QoS routing and dynamic load balancing.