MPLS Path Optimization in OT networks

IP/MPLS becomes widely adopted technology for networking migration from legacy SONET infrastructure. It serves well for all for variety of transmission and distribution automation use cases including transport for Teleprotection Relay circuits, where path diversity and stringent latency requirements mandates very often explicit per-hop provisioning of MPLS LSPs. This manual provisioning is very familiar to many OT operators, who often find it cumbersome, labour intensive and increasingly error prone with network scale.

Path Computation Element (PCE) along with Path Profile Attribute framework (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-alvarez-pce-path-profiles-04) powered by Nokia Bell Labs STAR algorithm, enables automated disjoint and bidirectional LSP's path computation and setup, which eliminates the need of manual explicit path configuration. In addition, disjoint paths provisioned by PCE can also be enabled with AMP (active multi path) to provide seamless switchover for Teleprotection circuits with zero packet loss. Combined, AMP and PCE/Path profiles enables OT operators with reliability framework which exceeds bring Teleprotection networking to new operational level which surpasses any existing technologies such as SONET or MPLS-TP .