Uniform FRR Failover Time

The failover time during FRR consists of a detection time and a switchover time. The detection time corresponds to the time it takes for the RSVP control plane protocol to detect that a network IP interface is down or that a neighbor/next-hop over a network IP interface is down. The control plane can be informed of an interface down event when the event is caused by a failure in a lower layer such in the physical layer. The control plane can also detect the failure of a neighbor/next-hop on its own by running a protocol such as Hello, Keep-Alive, or BFD.

The switchover time is measured from the time the control plane detects the failure of the interface or neighbor/next-hop to the time the XCMs or IOMs completes the reprogramming of all the impacted ILM or service records in the data path. This includes the time it takes for the control plane to send a down notification to all XCMs or IOMs to request a switch to the backup NHLFE.

Uniform Fast-Reroute (FRR) failover enables the switchover of MPLS and service packets from the outgoing interface of the primary LSP path to that of the FRR backup LSP within the same amount of time regardless of the number of LSPs or service records. This is achieved by updating Ingress Label Map (ILM) records and service records to point to the backup Next-Hop Label to Forwarding Entry (NHLFE) in a single operation.