A Comparison of In-Band and Out-of-Band Transport Options for Signaling
Malathi Veeraraghavan Haobo Wang
ECE Department
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904
mv5g@virginia.edu
Abstract: Signaling protocols for GMPLS networks have been
standarized and are now being implemented. Most switch vendors
allow for signaling messages to be carried over in-band signaling
channels as well as through out-of-band networks. In this paper,
we compare these two signaling transport options. In carrying out
this analysis, we allow for both software-implemented signaling
protocol processors, as is common in most off-the-shelf switches
today, as well as hardware-accelerated signaling protocol engines.
Our research project on hardware-accelerated signaling is in sup-
port of a service concept in which dynamically provisioned high-
speed end-to-end circuits are used for single file transfers. In this
application, signaling message loads will be extremely high since
call holding times will be short. For such a usage, we need a sig-
naling transport solution that minimizes message transfer times.
Therefore this question of in-band versus out-of-band signaling
transport is relevant to our research. Our analysis shows that
with hardware-accelerated signaling engines, in-band signaling is
the better option, while in a network with only software signaling
processors, the out-of-band solution is better.
Key words: Signaling, In-band, Out-of-band, Hardware-accel-
eration
I. INTRODUCTION
The Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching
(GMPLS) architecture [1] and associated signaling protocols
for Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET)/Synchronous
Digital Hierarchy (SDH) and Wavelength Division Multiplex-
ing (WDM) networks, such as Resource reSerVation Protocol-
Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE) [2], have been defined to
enable the deployment of dynamically controlled high-speed
circuit-switched networks. Equipment vendors for SONET/
SDH crossconnects and WDM optical crossconnects are
implementing these protocols. Networks equipped with these
signaling-enhanced circuit switches should be able to receive
requests for OC-1 (~51Mbps ) and higher-rate circuits, and
respond with dynamically provisioned circuits. While much
attention has been paid to the definition of signaling protocols,
little attention has been given to the transport mechanisms for
sending signaling messages between circuit switches. The
RSVP-TE specification [2] allows for the signaling messages
to be carried directly in IP packets or UDP datagrams, but it
does not constrain the links/paths used to transport these IP
packets in any way.
Most vendors have allowed for two options for the signal-
ing “links”: (i) in-band signaling channels, which are realized
as bandwidth set aside within user-plane interfaces between
two switches, e.g., the Data Communication Channel (DCC)
1
ECE Department
Polytechnic University
Brooklyn, NY 11201
haobo_w@photon.poly.edu
within each SONET signal, and (ii) out-of-band signaling
channels, e.g., an Ethernet interface from the control (call) pro-
cessor of the switch to an IP network.
Service providers are given the flexibility to choose
between these two options. This work is intended to provide
some quantitative guidance to service providers on this ques-
tion of which option to use. In order to carry out a quantitative
analysis, we need to characterize the signaling traffic load.
Since the signaling traffic load will be a critical parameter to
determine the answer, we need to consider the applications
expected for GMPLS signaling.
The two most commonly cited applications for GMPLS
networks are rapid provisioning and fast restoration. Rapid
provisioning is aimed at reducing the large delays incurred
today between when a customer requests a circuit, and when
the circuit becomes available for use. Many bandwidth-on-
demand service providers envision providing customers access
to servers with web interfaces that can accept requests for con-
nections and turn these into commands to the ingress node of
the connection (e.g., the customer’s router to/from which the
new connection is being requested). This ingress router would
then use GMPLS signaling to provision the connection through
a chain of SONET/SDH or WDM switches to the far-end
(egress) router specified in the customer’s request. The use of
GMPLS signaling and routing automates a process that cur-
rently needs manual intervention. While such requests will
generate some signaling load, we expect this load to be rela-
tively low because of the nature of the application. Enterprise
and/or ISP network administrators making such bandwidth-on-
demand requests to increase or decrease the capacity of their
enterprise wide-area access or inter-router links are not likely
to issue these requests too often. Furthermore call setup delays
in the order of seconds should be sufficient for this application,
given that even with this order of setup delays, the overall ser-
vice would be a vast improvement over the current service.
In the fast restoration application, GMPLS signaling is
used to establish replacement connections following a failure
thus saving a service provider protection-path bandwidth. This
application does require very low call-setup delays, if restora-
tion is to replace protection as a solution for handling failures.
Furthermore, in this application, a large number of connections
may need to be re-established simultaneously, which implies
that a large number of signaling messages could be generated
in a short time. Switches will thus need the ability to handle
large call volumes.
We proposed a third application class, file transfers, for
GMPLS-enabled high-speed circuit-switched networks [3].
Our work on this usage of GMPLS networks, called Circuit-
switched High-speed End-to-End Transport ArcHitecture
(CHEETAH) is currently being sponsored in an eScience
project by the NSF. We identified file transfers as being ideally
suited for high-speed circuits given that a file transfer can take
advantage of any data rate it is provided (the higher the better),
and furthermore, a file transfer requires the movement of
stored data, which means there is no inherent burstiness in the
generation of data at the sender. The latter makes it ideal to
keep a circuit pipe fully utilized. However, file transfer times
can be quite short. For example, it takes only 800ms to trans-
fer a 100MB file on an 1Gbps circuit. Therefore this applica-
tion can be regarded as rather extreme in its generation of calls
and corresponding signaling message load. The in-band/out-of-
band question becomes important in this application because of
its need to support high signaling loads and low setup delays.
Call setup delay includes (i) signaling message processing
delays, (ii) round-trip propagation delay, and (iii) signaling
message emission delays. Toward reducing signaling message
processing delays, in an NSF-sponsored project [4], we imple-
mented a subset of RSVP-TE in hardware to reduce the signal-
ing message processing overhead to the order of microseconds.
The second component, round-trip propagation delay, cannot
be reduced due to speed-of-light constraints. The goal of this
work is to reduce the third component, emission delays, with-
out of course compromising utilization. This led us to compare
in-band and out-of-band signaling transport architectures.
Section II describes the in-band and out-of-band transport
options. We describe our queueing models for the two options
in Section III, and provide numerical results of our comparison
in Section IV. Our conclusions are presented in Section V.
II. IN-BAND AND OUT-OF-BAND SIGNALING OPTIONS
Fig. 1 illustrates the two options for signaling transport: in-
band signaling and out-of-band signaling.
Signaling R2
User
R1 IP network
SW2 SW3 R4
SW1 SW6
SW2
SW1
SW4 SW5 SW4
(a) In-Band Signaling (b) Out-of-Band Signaling
Fig. 1 In-band and out-of-band signaling options
In the in-band signaling option, the signaling traffic shares
the same channel as the data traffic. For example, the DCC
channel in SONET signal can be used to transport signaling
messages, as shown in Fig. 2a. However, the bandwidth of the
DCC channel is limited. For each separate OC-1 signal, the
Section DCC has a bandwidth of 192Kbps , and the Line DCC
of 576Kbps .
There are two alternatives that can overcome the bandwidth
limitation of the DCC channel. In the first case, a switch inter-
DCC
-12
OC
{
OC-1
(a) In-band signaling case 1 (b) In-band signaling case 2 (c) In-band signaling case 3
Fig. 2 Three cases of in-band signaling
face is partitioned into signaling bandwidth and user-plane
bandwidth. For example, one or more OC-1s can be set aside
within each user-plane interface to exclusively carry signaling
messages (e.g. Fig. 2b shows an OC-1 signaling channel within
an OC-12 interface). In the second case, one or more OC-1s of
one user-plane interface between two switches, which are con-
nected by N interfaces, are set aside for signaling, as shown in
Fig. 2c. The disadvantage of these two alternatives is that there
is revenue loss due to allocating user-plane bandwidth to sig-
naling.
Fig. 1b illustrates the out-of-band signaling option. The key
difference is that the path taken by the signaling channel is nec-
essarily different from the path taken by the user-plane inter-
faces that it supports. For example, the signaling channel could
pass through packet switches while the user-plane interfaces
are direct (logical or physical) between two switches. In other
words, the signaling channel is separate from and independent
of the data channel. A classical example of out-of-band signal-
ing is the Signaling System 7 (SS7) network, which is used to
carry signaling messages between DS0-based telephone circuit
switches. SS7 is a connectionless packet-switched technology.
Unlike in telephone networks, when it was economically
feasible to create a dedicated connectionless packet-switched
network just for signaling traffic, in today’s environment, with
the ubiquity of the Internet, it is more likely that GMPLS-
enabled SONET/SDH/WDM circuit switches will leverage the
Internet for signaling message transport. A service provider
could simply connect the control processors of their GMPLS
R3
enabled circuit switches to the Internet and expect it to route
R6 signaling messages as needed. A potential drawback is latency.
R5 We will create models for such out-of-band signaling channels
SW3 routed through the Internet, and analyze these models to pre-
SW6 dict performance.
SW5
III. DELAY MODELS FOR THE TWO OPTIONS
In this section, we set up and analyze models for the two
signaling transport options, in-band signaling and out-of-band
signaling. Our goal is to compute the total delay incurred in
processing and sending a signaling message from one switch to
the next successfully. This consists of the following compo-
nents: (i) queueing delay plus service time at the signaling pro-
cessor, (ii) queueing delay plus transmission time on the
signaling channel, (iii) total delay to successfully send the mes-
sage on the signaling channel, which includes retransmissions
in case of errors. We list our assumptions and notation, and
then describe our queueing model.
2
A. Assumptions
We assume that the call arrival process is Poisson, which
has been shown to hold true for FTP applications in [6]. Each
call involves multiple signaling messages. For example, in
RSVP-TE, each call may involve Path messages, Resv mes-
sages, and PathTear/ResvTear messages. We assume the arrival
of signaling messages is also Poisson. Although the messages
involved in a call are related, we argue that since the duration
of a call is random, the arrival times of PathTear/ResvTear
messages are independent of those of Path and Resv messages.
Besides, after a switch sends out a Path message, the Path
message may go through a random number of downstream
switches before reaching the destination. The time to the recep-
tion of a Resv message following the transmission of a Path
message is thus randomized.
The service times at signaling processors and the transmis-
sion times at signaling channels are both assumed to be deter-
ministic. The processing of different RSVP-TE signaling
messages takes different times, and Path message is the most
time consuming one. In [4], we introduced a pipelined archi-
tecture for hardware-acceleration of RSVP-TE signaling mes-
sage processing. In order to achieve full pipelining and the
highest throughput, we purposely inserted dummy cycles when
processing Resv, PathTear, and ResvTear messages so that the
processing of all four messages will take the same number of
clock cycles. Even without such an implementation, the differ-
ence in processing times is not significant for different mes-
sage type. As for the length of signaling messages, the Path
and Resv messages are roughly equivalent in size, while the
PathTear and ResvTear are roughly equivalent in size. The
approximate size is a few 100 bytes. Therefore we assume that
signaling processing times and signaling transmission times
are deterministic.
We assume that all messages fit in one packet, since the
maximum transmission unit size of most existing networks is
larger than the size of an RSVP-TE message.
B. Notation
Our notation is shown in Table 1. In the rest of the paper,
the superscripts, OOB and IB, may be used on some of these
parameters as appropriate for out-of-band and in-band, respec-
tively.
Table 1: Notation
Symbol Meaning
λ Aggregate signaling message arrival rate
µ proc Service rate of the signaling processor
µ tx Service rate of the signaling channel transmitter
Number of GMPLS-enabled neighbors to a switch (also the
n
number of in-band signaling channels)
3
Table 1: Notation
Symbol Meaning
qj Probability of sending an outgoing signaling message to the
th
j in-band signaling channel; j = 1, …, n
T proc A random variable denoting the response time at the signaling
protocol processor (waiting time plus service time)
T tx A random variable denoting the response time at the signaling
channel transmitter (waiting time plus service time)
Tn One-way network delay in sending a signaling message from
one switch to the next
To Initial time-out value of the retransmission timer at the sender
p Probability of packet loss
C. Queueing model
There are two servers related to signaling at a GMPLS-
enabled circuit switch: (i) signaling protocol processor, and (ii)
signaling channel transmitter. We assume that the switch has a
single signaling protocol processor irrespective of whether the
signaling link solution is in-band or out-of-band. We first
describe our queueing model for the signaling protocol proces-
sor and the signaling channel transmitter without consider-
ations of message loss and subsequent retransmissions. We
then improve this model by adding in the possibility of mes-
sage loss and retransmissions.
1) Model without retransmissions
q1 µ txIB 1
µ proc q 2 µ txIB 2
λ µ proc µ txOOB
qn µ IBn
tx
λ
n
(a) In-Band Signaling, where qi = 1 (b) Out-of-Band Signaling
i =1
Fig. 3 Queueing models of the signaling protocol processor and the sig-
naling channel transmitters at a GMPLS enabled circuit switch
Fig. 3 illustrates our queueing models of these two servers
for both in-band and out-of-band solutions. In the in-band solu-
tion, there are n signaling channels given our assumption of n
GMPLS-enabled neighbors to the switch (see Table 1). In the
out-of-band solution, we assume that there is only one out-of-
band signaling channel.
Given that the models shown in Fig. 3 are networks of
queues, we consulted the literature on modeling such queueing
networks. Most of the solutions for queueing networks, such as
Burke’s theorem and Jackson’s theorem, are for a network of
M/M/1 queues while in our case, as stated in subsection A, the
service times of both queues are deterministic.
Even though there is no analytical derivation for a network
of queues with deterministic service times (to our knowledge),
it turns out that if we take into account practical considerations,
this network of queues reduces to a single M/D/1 queue. Our
reasoning is as follows. The service rate of the signaling pro-
cessor, µ proc , is determined by the switch vendor, while the
service rate of the signaling channel, µ tx , either in-band or
out-of-band, is determined by the service provider. We expect
the switch vendor to select µ proc so that the user-plane inter-
faces and the signaling protocol processor are equally utilized.
Once this decision is made, and a switch is manufactured,
µ proc is fixed. A service provider who purchases this switch
then has only one degree of freedom to choose an appropriate
bandwidth level for the signaling channels, i.e., the service pro-
vider can select µ tx .
The service provider should limit µ tx ≤ µ proc , because
choosing a µ tx larger than µ proc is an unnecessary waste of
bandwidth. Therefore we attempt to solve the network of
queues model in Fig. 3 for only two cases, µ tx = µ proc , and
µ tx < µ proc . We further limit the second case to only
µ tx « µ proc . Reasoning that a service provider may choose
µ tx < µ proc for costs reasons, we further argue that in this
case it is more likely that µ tx « µ proc because cost differen-
tials for minor drops in transmission rates are often not signifi-
cant (e.g., compare the cost of an 800Mbps circuit vs. a 1Gbps
circuit). Clearly the service provider should recognize that in
choosing this option instead of the µ tx = µ proc option, the
network is being planned for a lower call arrival rate than the
maximum rate for which the switch is designed.
For these two cases, µ tx = µ proc and µ tx « µ proc , the
queueing network model of Fig. 3 is reduced to a single M/D/1
queue. This is because under our assumption (see subsection
A) that the service time at the signaling protocol processor is
deterministic, the departure rate is no more than µ proc . If
µ tx = µ proc , the second server (signaling channel transmit-
ter) will keep up with the arriving signaling messages. In other
words, the second queue is always empty, and the delay at the
second queue is solely the service time (or emission time). On
the other hand, if µ tx « µ proc , since λ ≤ µ tx for the system to
be stable, λ « µ proc , which implies that the first queueing sys-
tem is lightly loaded. We therefore assume that when a signal-
ing message arrives, it is served immediately and the first
queue is always empty.
For these two cases, µ tx = µ proc and µ tx « µ proc , the
queueing network model of Fig. 3 is reduced to a single queue.
The mean response time for a signaling message at a switch,
E [ T sw ] , is given by:
1
E [ T sw ] = E [ T proc ] + ------- , if µ tx = µ proc
µ tx
1
E [ T sw ] = E [ T tx ] + ------------- , if µ tx « µ proc
µ proc
where E [ T proc ] is the mean response time at the signaling
protocol processor queue, and E [ T tx ] is the mean response
time at the signaling channel transmitter queue (see Fig. 3).
The above reasoning applies directly to the out-of-band
case (Fig. 3b) since in this case there is only one signaling
channel. In the in-band solution, a similar reasoning holds if
the individual signaling channel rates are selected according to
the probabilities q j (see Fig. 3 and Table 1), i.e.,
IBj
µ tx = q j µ proc , j = 1, 2, …, n . Using the argument stated
before, we assume that the service provider will either choose
all the in-band signaling channel rates such that
IBj
µ tx = q j µ proc , or choose rates that are much lower,
IBj
µ tx « q j µ proc . Under these conditions, our earlier reasoning
of treating the queueing network as a single queue holds.
2) Model including retransmissions
In this model, we include the third component of the delay,
which is T n , the one-way network delay (see Table 1). This
delay is impacted by losses and retransmissions. Message loss
is possible irrespective of whether the signaling channel is in-
band or out-of-band. The reasons for message loss in the in-
band case are due to bit- and burst-errors on the links, and
receive-buffer overflows due to flow control problem. Bit- and
burst-link errors arise due to noise and interference on the
physical media. Even though optical fiber, the physical
medium of these high-speed circuit-switched networks, is
fairly reliable, link errors are unavoidable. Receive-buffer
overflows will occur if the signaling protocol processor at the
sending switch is faster than that at the receiving side. Since
different switch vendors could use different implementation
techniques for the signaling protocol processor, this flow con-
trol problem may arise. In the out-of-band solution, an addi-
tional cause of message loss is buffer overflow at any of the
routers on the path between the sending and receiving
switches.
Since RSVP-TE is specified to use UDP or raw IP, and
these protocols do not offer a reliable service, RFC 2961 [5]
proposed an exponential back-off retransmission algorithm to
provide reliability. Each message has a unique MESSAGE_ID,
and a timer starts counting after the message has been transmit-
ted. If the corresponding acknowledgment (MESSAGE_ID_
ACK) is not received within a time-out threshold, the signaling
message is re-transmitted, the corresponding time-out thresh-
old is doubled (starting from T 0 ).
λ Transmitter
(1-p)
(1)
p
f(T0)
(2)
Fig. 4 Signaling channel transmitter model including retransmissions
Assuming that retransmissions will, in typical implementa-
tions, join the signaling channel transmitter queue, and that it is
valid to rewrite (1) to be the same as (2) (in other words for
both cases, µ tx = µ proc , and µ tx « µ proc , we use (2)), we
redraw the model for the second queue (the signaling channel
transmitter) as shown in Fig. 4. With probability p , a message
4
is lost, which means a time-out occurs, and the message is
retransmitted. To model exponential doubling, we show the
time-out value as a function f of the initial time-out value T o .
The mean response time at the transmitter queue, E [ T tx ] is
a sum of the mean waiting time, E [ W ], and the service delay
(which is a constant, 1 ⁄ µ tx , given our assumptions). The
mean waiting time, E [ W ], can be computed assuming that the
message arrival rate at the transmitter queue is given by:
2 λ 3
λ + λp + λp + λp + … = ----------------
(1 – p)
where ρ = λ ⁄ µ tx . The first term, 1 ⁄ µ proc , is common to
both in-band signaling and out-of-band signaling. Therefore,
p , µ tx , and T n determine which is better, in-band signaling or
out-of-band signaling under different sets of conditions. We
consider different numerical values for these input parameters
and compare the two signaling transport solutions.
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
(3)
A. Input parameter values

Table 2: Input parameter values

but for small p , this can be approximated to λ .
Since in RSVP-TE, the signaling protocol processor is also Symbol Value
involved in handling retransmissions, the same load appears at
both the signaling protocol processor and the signaling channel λ Varied from 0.01µ tx to 0.95µ tx
transmitter. Thus, rewriting (1) to be same as (2) is not affected
because of retransmissions. µ proc 200, 000 /sec, hardware signaling
200 /sec, software signaling
Using µ proc , T n , T tx , T 0 , and p (see Table 1), and the
retransmission algorithm described above, we determine the µ tx µ tx = 200, 000 /sec, hardware signaling, µ tx = µ proc
mean total time to process and send the outgoing signaling
µ tx = 40, 000 /sec, hardware signaling, µ tx « µ proc
message successfully to the next-hop switch as:
µ tx = 200 /sec, software signaling
E [ T ] = 1 ⁄ µ proc + T n + [ ( E [ T tx ] ) ( ( 1 – p ) + (4)
2 n 5 and 10 . For the purpose of comparison, the aggregate
2p ( 1 – p ) + 3p ( 1 – p ) + … ) ] + T 0 ( p ( 1 – p ) + bandwidths of in-band and out-of-band signaling are the same,
2 3
3p ( 1 – p ) + 7p ( 1 – p ) + … ) therefore µ tx
IBj OOB
= µ tx ⁄n

The explanation for the above equation is as follows. The qj Probability of sending an outgoing signaling message to the
first two terms, 1 ⁄ µ proc and T n , correspond to the processing j
th
in-band signaling channel; j = 1, …, n
delay and the time to transmit a message successfully one-way
from the sending switch to the receiving switch. The next term Tn
IBj 0.2ms in metro area
corresponds to the mean response time (mean waiting time 25ms in wide area
plus mean service time) waiting in the signaling channel trans-
Tn
OOB 0.5ms and 1ms in metro area
mitter queue. This delay is incurred once if the first transmis-
sion is successful (probability ( 1 – p ) ), twice if the first 35ms and 45ms in wide area
transmission is unsuccessful but the second transmission is a IBj IBj
success and so on. The last term in (4) corresponds to the time- To 3T n
out value, which is being doubled for every retransmission. OOB OOB
To 3T n
1 1 p
E [ T ] = ------------- + T n + ------------ E [ T tx ] + --------------- T 0 (5)
µ proc 1–p 1 – 2p p
IBj
10
–8
and 10
–4

OOB 1% and 5%
Assuming T 0 = 3T n (counting round-trip network delay p
and other minor delays), (5) can be re-written as:
1 1 1+p With hardware-accelerated signaling engine [4], RSVP-TE
E [ T ] = ------------- + ------------ E [ T tx ] + --------------- T n (6) signaling messages can be processed within several microsec-
µ proc 1 – p 1 – 2p
onds. Accordingly we assume µ proc is 200, 000 /sec for a
Using the mean response time of an M/D/1 queue for hardware-accelerated signaling engine and 200 /sec for a soft-
E [ Ttx ] , we have: ware signaling processor.
For hardware-accelerated signaling, when µ tx = µ proc ,
ρ
1 – --- µ tx is 200, 000 /sec; when µ tx « µ proc , we assume
1 1 2 1 1+p 1
E [ T ] = ------------- + ------------ ⋅ ------------ ⋅ ------- + --------------- T n (7) µ tx = --- µ , or 40, 000 /sec. For software signaling, even
µ proc 1 – p 1 – ρ µ tx 1 – 2p 5
when µ tx proc= µ proc , µ tx is 200 /sec or 200kbps (assuming
125 bytes or 1000 bits per message). Considering the fact that

5
even a single SDCC channel has a bandwidth of 192kbps , IBj
delay is negligible. For in-band signaling, the values of p
assigning µ tx a value less than 200 /sec is impractical. There-
–8 –4
fore we do not consider µ tx « µ proc for software signaling. we use are 10 and 10 (see Table 2). In Fig. 5 and all fol-
In order to choose reasonable values for T n and p , we refer lowing figures, we cannot observe notable difference between
to the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research in-band signaling cases of p
IBj
= 10
–4
and p
IBj
= 10
–8
.
(NLANR)1 for Round-Trip Time (RTT) and packet loss rate
measurements. We randomly chose North Carolina University Fig. 6 shows the total mean delay in the wide area. Here,
(NCSU) as our starting point. For the data collected on June the total delay is even more dominated by T n , which is signifi-
14, 2004, we noticed that the RTT between NCSU and the cantly higher than the first two terms of (7), and hence in-band
North Carolina GigaPOP, is 1ms . We used the corresponding signaling outperforms out-of-band signaling.
one-way delay, 0.5ms , for our metro setting. The distance
between these two locations is 20.6 miles. The propagation
delay is around 0.16ms . We also notice that in a similar geo-
graphical distance (22.6 miles to be accurate), the RTT
between NCSU and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
(UNC) is 2ms , or 1ms for one-way. The different RTTs may
result from different network conditions. Based on the data
OOB
obtained from NLANR, we choose 0.5ms and 1ms for T n
IBj
in the metro area. We choose 0.2ms for T n , since this delay
is mainly propagation delay. In the wide area, for example
from NCSU to locations in California, the RTTs range from
Fig. 5 In-band/out-of-band signaling with hardware signaling,
75ms (California Institute of Technology, CIT) to 89.99ms metro area, µ tx = µ proc
(San Diego State University, SDSU). We choose 35ms and
OOB IBj
45ms for T n , and 25ms for T n (propagation delay). The
reason we allow for both a metro-area and a wide-area setting
is that some service providers may connect two signaling-
enabled switches located across a wide-area with logical links
making them neighbors from a signaling point of view. In the
telephone network, for example, many carriers do interconnect
signaling-enabled switches in California directly via logical
links (for the user-plane interfaces) with switches in New York.
OOB
We choose 1% and 5% for p . As we explained before,
even for in-band signaling, bit- and burst-link errors, buffer
IBj –4
overflows may cause packet loss. For p , we choose 10 Fig. 6 In-band/out-of-band signaling with hardware signaling,
–8
and 10 . wide area, µ tx = µ proc
In the following subsections, we will show the delays under
different scenarios. In each case, we vary the aggregate signal- C. Hardware-accelerated signaling engine, and µ tx « µ proc
ing message arrival rate, from 0.01µ tx to 0.95µ tx , to show
the delays under different loads.

B. Hardware-accelerated signaling engine, and µ tx = µ proc

From Fig. 5, we can observe that in the metro area, when
hardware-accelerated signaling is used and µ tx = µ proc , in-
band signaling always outperforms out-of-band signaling.
Referring to (7), the first two terms are relatively small (in the
order of µs ) when compared to T n , which is in the order of
ms . Thus, the total delay is mainly determined by T n . Since
Fig. 7 In-band/out-of-band signaling with hardware signaling,
IBj OOB metro area, µ tx « µ proc
Tn is less than T n , the in-band solution does better.

According to (7), when p is small, its impact on the total When µ tx « µ proc , for hardware-accelerated signaling,
the first term of (7) is still negligible, but the queueing delay at
the transmitter (i.e., the second term of (7)) becomes compara-
1. http://www.nlanr.net

6
ble to the third term in the metro area setting, where T n is in
the hundreds of µs . When ρ is high, the factor
( 1 – ρ ⁄ 2 ) ⁄ ( 1 – ρ ) starts increasing to the point where the sec-
ond term dominates the total mean delay. In this case the out-
of-band signaling outperforms in-band signaling because µ tx
is a five times higher in the out-of-band case than in the in-
band case (see Table 2). In the wide area, T n still dominates
and hence the lower rate of the in-band channel is compensated
by the increased T n of the out-of-band solution.
Fig. 8 In-band/out-of-band signaling with hardware signaling,
wide area, µ tx « µ proc
D. Software signaling processor
Fig. 9 In-band/out-of-band signaling with software signaling, metro area
Fig. 10 In-band/out-of-band signaling with software signaling, wide area
From Fig. 9, we can observe that out-of-band signaling out-
performs in-band signaling in the metro area when software
signaling processors are used. This is because the message pro-
cessing delay and emission delays (first two terms of (7)) will
dominate the total delay.
In the wide area (Fig. 10), the choice between in-band and
out-of-band signaling really depends on the choices of parame-
ters. When T n = 35ms and p=1%, out-of-band signaling dem-
onstrates the best performance. But we do note that the RTT
measurements obtained from the NLANR site were made pri-
marily on Internet2, which is lightly loaded. On the Internet,
RTTs are likely to be significantly higher. In this case, even
with software signaling processors, the network delay may
dominate, making in-band signaling a better choice.
V. CONCLUSIONS
We compared in-band and out-of-band signaling transport
options under assumptions of the switches having hardware-
accelerated signaling engines or software signaling processors.
With hardware signaling engines, if the bandwidth allocated
for the in-band signaling channels is in par with the speeded-up
processing rates, then the main source of delay in sending a
signaling message is the network delay. Using an out-of-band
path through the public Internet could make this component
significant and thus obliterate the gains in call setup delays
made with hardware signaling engines. In this case, fast in-
band signaling channels are required. In the parameters we
considered, this required setting aside one OC1 for each neigh-
bor switch to which there could potentially be a large number
of interfaces, each at a multi-OC1 rate. On the other hand, with
software signaling processors, we found that network delays
matter much less, and hence the cheaper out-of-band public
Internet option is sufficient in the metro area. But in the wide
area, in-band signaling is typically a better option.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is sponsored by an NSF ANIR grant, 0087487.
This work also benefits from an NSF EIN grant, 0335190, and
an NSF ITR grant, 0312376.
REFERENCES
[1] E. Mannie, “Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Ar-
chitecture,” IETF Internet Draft, May 2003.
[2] L. Berger, “Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Sig-
naling Resource ReserVation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE)
Extensions,” IETF RFC 3473, Jan. 2003.
[3] M. Veeraraghavan, X. Zheng, H. Lee, M. Gardner, and W. Feng,
“CHEETAH: Circuit-switched High-speed End-to-End Transport Ar-
cHitecture,” Proc. of Opticomm2003, Dallas, TX, 2003.
[4] H. Wang, M. Veeraraghavan, R. Karri, and T. Li, “A Hardware-Acceler-
ated Implementation of the RSVP-TE Signaling Protocol,” Proc. of
ICC2004, Paris, France, 2004.
[5] L. Berger, D. Gan, et al., “RSVP Refresh Overhead Reduction Exten-
sions,” IETF RFC 2961, April 2001.
[6] V. Paxon and S. Floyd, “Wide-Area Traffic: The Failure of Poisson
Modeling,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol.3, June 1995.
[7] Donald Gross, Carl M. Harris, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, 3rd
edition, Wiley-Interscience, 1998.