Automatic traffic mapping for multi-protocol label switching networks

A network device comprising:

• one or more processors configured to generate an advertisement that conforms to a routing protocol used for advertising routing information, the advertisement advertising a mapping between a network flow and a label switched path tag, and generate a communication associating the label switched path tag with a label switched path;
• and
• an interface card configured to transmit the advertisement in accordance with the routing protocol to a head-end label edge router that admits traffic into the label switched path identified by the label switch path tag, and transmit the communication to the label edge router such that the label edge router is able to process the communication in conjunction with the advertisement to map the network flow to the label switched path identified by the label switched path tag.

A label edge router configured to admit network traffic to a label switched path, the label edge router comprising:

• an interface card configured to receive, with a label edge router that admits network traffic to a label switched path, an advertisement from a network device, the advertisement conforming to a routing protocol and advertising a mapping between a network flow and a label switched path tag, and receive a communication associating the label switched path tag with the label switched path, and
• a control unit configured to process the communication and the advertisement to map the network flow to the label switched path identified by the label switched path tag, and process network traffic corresponding to the network flow to forward the packets via the label switched path identified by the label switched path tag.