Configuring Mlfr - HP ProCurve Secure Router 7203 dl Advanced Management And Configuration Manual

Increasing Bandwidth

Configuring MLFR

2-8
Configuring MLFR
Like MLPPP, MLFR aggregates several physical connections into a single
logical connection. MLFR helps provide greater access rates for PVCs, partic-
ularly in environments in which the greater bandwidth of an E3- or T3-carrier
line is not available. MLFR also creates more stable PVCs: if one physical
interface goes down, the other interfaces can continue to provide bandwidth
for a connection.
Routers that support MLFR FRF.15 bundle multiple carrier lines at the user's
end. The service provider does not recognize the bundle. It assigns each line
one Data Link Connection Identifier (DLCI) and carries traffic over the PVC
for each line, just as it would for non-bundled lines. The remote router, which
also runs MLFR FRF.15, receives the traffic from multiple PVCs but treats it
as traffic from a single PVC.
FRF.15 does not require the Frame Relay service provider to support MLFR.
However, each bundle can support only one point-to-point connection to a
remote site. The remote site must use the same number of carrier lines as the
local site.
The ProCurve Secure Router supports MLFR FRF.16 rather than FRF.15,
which means that your service provider must support MLFR. FRF.16 provides
several advantages over FRF.15. It allows a bundle to carry multiple PVCs to
multiple remote sites, and these sites can use different amounts of bandwidth.
FRF.16 aggregates multiple carrier lines to produce a high-speed connection
to the Frame Relay service provider. The service provider supports MLFR, so
it recognizes that these lines should be treated as a single bundle. The service
provider assigns you a DLCI for the lines as a bundle instead of for each line
individually. Rather than associating DLCI 101 with E1-carrier line 1 and DLCI
102 with E1-carrier line 2, the Frame Relay service provider associates DLCI
101 and 102 with both E1-carrier lines. (See Figure 2-3.)
You can request DLCIs for PVCs to as many remote sites as your organization
needs. In addition, the remote sites do not have to aggregate the same number
of lines as the local site or even run MLFR at all. The multilink connection is
to the Frame Relay provider, not to the remote sites.
MLFR does not necessarily fragment frames. However, it can use FRF.12 to
fragment large frames and minimize delay. An MLFR header is added to the
original Frame Relay header to mark the fragments' sequence numbers.