| You have an often confusing menu of choices for | | | | as QoS. MPLS also provides faster operation on a |
| your voice/data network today. A hot option for | | | | shared service provider network by using label |
| multi-site networks is MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label | | | | switching instead of IP routing table lookup at every |
| Switching). Is MPLS the right choice for your business? | | | | hop. You can create both point to point or multipoint |
| MPLS provides for use of short tails into a large | | | | VPNs using MPLS. |
| network. The tail price being a larger proportion or any | | | | So the answer is, when you want a single converged |
| connectivity cost. Therefore, MPLS works out very | | | | last mile (Services-voice/data/video/internet) for |
| well when compared to long distance point to point | | | | multiple locations in a cost lower than dedicated links ..... |
| links or when connectiong multiple sites. | | | | while having the efficiency as good as Or near to |
| VPLS the new generation of MPLS enables multi-site | | | | dedicated/TDM/ATM links. Then "MPLS is The |
| to multi-site connectivity similar to having a WAN all on | | | | Choice." |
| the same LAN subnet. This reduces single points of | | | | A couple additional comments based upon my carrier |
| failure and provides for greater control and facilities the | | | | experience. MPLS is appropriate for voice/ data |
| roll out of new services across a WAN as the end | | | | because the technology supports trafic prioritization |
| user doesn't require any technical knowledge to deploy | | | | (QoS). An additional consideration is that most carriers |
| mult-level QoS and virtual switching between sites. In | | | | have standardized their engineering and network |
| layer 2 VPLS the network is completely transparent to | | | | operations on supporting network MPLS-based VPNs. |
| the end customer. | | | | Consequently, you will be able to negotiate better |
| MPLS usually is a cheap way of connecting several | | | | SLAs from your Service Provider. One should also |
| offices point to point for data transfer, and once you | | | | plan an end-to-end QoS strategy for your applications. |
| pull that one, expanding it to voice is plain and cheap. It | | | | Ensure you are aware of the application performance |
| all depends what technology you generally use to | | | | requirements prior to designing your network. |
| connect several points together. | | | | To summarize, the positive attributes of MPLS are the |
| MPLS is the best choice when you are running latency | | | | flexibility of access methods and transports supported, |
| sensitive applications over your WAN. Also, if your | | | | the scalability of bandwidth demands, and of course, |
| business has multiple locations, MPLS is a great way | | | | the QoS and traffic prioritization capabilities. |
| to have redundancy built into your WAN. | | | | Please heed a warning about the last mile provider. If |
| MPLS brings the advantages of dedicated links in the | | | | you can find one provider to cover all of your locations |
| cost of shared IP networks, with multiservice | | | | (including the last mile), then this will cause you a lot less |
| capabilities and support for traffic engineering as well | | | | headaches. |