MPLS

Cisco jumps aboard Cable & Wireless' MPLS network

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:23:53 -0400

When big customers like AT&T cut back on their capital expenditure, their suppliers - such as Cisco - get a headache. Such is life when a big corporation contributes a large slice of Cisco's revenue. But for other vendors Cisco itself is that large customer that contributes a large slice of their sales. Take Cable & Wireless which two years ago cut its ties to the consumer world so that it could focus on a few large customers - including Cisco.

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What is WAN (Metro) Ethernet?

BandwidthSeek.Net — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:43:37 -0400

Metro Ethernet is the use of telco carrier-supported Ethernet technology in metropolitan area networks (MANs) or Wide Area Networks (WANs) vs. using Ethernet technology for just a Local Area Network (LAN), the most widely used application for the Ethernet protocol. Because it is typically a collective endeavor with numerous financial contributors, Metro Ethernet offers cost-effectiveness, reliability, scalability and bandwidth management superior to most proprietary networks. Metro Ethernet can connect businesses LANs and individual end users to a WAN or to the Internet. Corporations, academic institutions and government agencies in large cities can use Metro Ethernet to connect branch campuses or offices to an intranet.

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MPLS: How does it work?

andrenym00 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:09:34 -0400

It is in some ways similar to an internet based VPN (Virtual Private Network) in the setup... but very different as well.

MPLS in its root is a signal formatting that allows traffic to be tagged and prioritized. Ultimately, carriers either run MPLS over their IP network cloud or some maintain a separate network cloud for MPLS only. Either way, you connect into the cloud via whatever you need. Could be a T1 or bonded T1s for one location, full or fractional DS3 for others, etc.

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Cisco's first Patch Wednesday produces five IOS alerts

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:09:17 -0400

Cisco Wednesday 'celebrated' its first six-monthly patch schedule for IOS by delivering five separate security alerts. The alerts affect Cisco IOS Multicast VPN (MPVN); IOS with OSPF, MPLS VPN, and Supervisor 32, Supervisor 720, or Router Switch Processor 720; IOS user datagram protocol delivery; and IOS' Data-link Switching feature.

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What is MPLS?

andrenym00 — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:08:44 -0500

It is in some ways similar to an internet based VPN (Virtual Private Network) in the setup... but very different as well.

RE: IETF, ITU form first-of-kind group to resolve MPLS spat

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:55:28 -0500

The MPLS community is arguing while PBT is gaining momentum.

L2TPv3 Pseudowhat?

Mark_Lewis — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:48:32 -0500

L2TPv3 has been around for a while now, but it seems to be one of those things that not too many people know about.

Typically, when I raise the subject of L2TPv3, I get one of the following reactions:

‘L2TPv3 pseudowhat?'

‘Nobody uses that anymore - it's obsolete, isn't it?'

‘That's a good solution for tunnelling PPP, but we're talking about Ethernet.'

So, for those who aren't really aware of L2TPv3 or what it can do, I thought I'd blog a little on the subject.

The first thing to say about L2TPv3 is that it is not L2TPv2, but it is based on L2TPv2. And the first thing to say about L2TPv2 is that it is neither L2F nor PPTP, but it is based on both of those protocols.

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RE: Sprint offering router-to-router SLAs for Global MPLS VPN service

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:03:46 -0500

Does Sprint and AT&T have NNI peering relationships to leverage MPLS VPN services for customrs of respective providers?

Understanding MPLS VPNs, Part I

jdoyle — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:57:49 -0500

One of the most compelling drivers for MPLS in service provider networks is its support for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), in which the provider’s customers can connect geographically diverse sites across the provider’s network.

There are three kinds of MPLS-based VPN:

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Understanding MPLS Label Stacking

jdoyle — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:25:04 -0500

In the last two posts I discussed the role of FECs in MPLS networks, and implicit and explicit null labels. In this brief post I’d like to discuss MPLS label stacking, as a preliminary to a couple of posts on MPLS VPNs.

Label stacking is the encapsulation of an MPLS packet inside another MPLS packet – that is, adding an MPLS header “on top of” (hence stacking) an existing MPLS header. The result of stacking is the ability to tunnel one MPLS LSP inside another LSP.

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Understanding MPLS Explicit and Implicit Null Labels

jdoyle — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:48:45 -0500

In the previous post, discussing the role of the FEC in MPLS networks, I used in one of my examples a particular label value; I was hoping someone would ask about it, which would give me a nice segue to this post. Well no one did, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway.

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Which Site-to-Site VPN: 10 Important Questions

Mark_Lewis — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 21:56:21 -0500

One of the most common questions that I am asked is what type of VPN an organization should deploy. So, in the hope that it will save some people some time, I thought I’d just go through some of the most basic considerations when choosing a VPN protocol.

Let’s suppose you’ve decided to deploy a VPN to connect your organization’s/customers’ sites (a site-to-site VPN). But you are not sure which VPN technology and type you should deploy – should it be IPsec, MPLS layer-3, MPLS layer-2, L2TPv3-based, or another technology?

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Cisco behind AT&T's MPLS backbone

Cisco Subnet — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:56:53 -0500

Cisco's honking big CRS-1 is the switch AT&T is using to expand the reach of its 40G IP/MPLS backbone network to more than 50,000 miles in the United States, reports Network World. The Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), will extend 40Gbps from a core network to regional carrier locations, and will serve as the core platform for AT&T’s backbone expansion, the company says. The CRS-1, which Cisco unveiled in June 2004, has 1.2Tbps of capacity and 40Gbps of capacity per line card slot. Yahoo Broadband in Japan deployed the CRS-1 to upgrade its network to 40Gbps last year to meet customer demand for Internet access, VoIP and video-on-demand.

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RE: MPLS vs. WAN optimization, Part 2

Keao Caindec — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:09:39 -0500

As a network provider, we absolutely believe that WAN optimization (or at least components of optimization) should be embedded into the router. With a carrier-grade WAN optimization solution built into a router, cariers could offer a more cost-effective and simple to use managed service. I must admit, the irony is amusing: deploy WAN optimimization on a router to solve the inefficiencies of routing protocols. Keao Caindec CMO, Yipes Enterprise Services, Inc. kcaindec@yipes.com

RE: Ethernet vs. MPLS in the WAN

Keao Caindec — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:01:03 -0500

IP MPLS and Ethernet VPLS services are both based on MPLS technology, and thus are able to meet the needs for a multipoint-to-multipoint converged network. The only difference is that one is handed off as a layer 3 service (IP MPLS) and the other as a layer 2 service (Ethernet VPLS). From our perspective, applications more than security or a desire to control routing seem to be driving the migration to Ethernet VPNs. It's not so much control of routing being a driver as it is not having to deal with another carriers IP network addressing policies. Ethernet end-to-end is simply easier to manage and scale than an IP MPLS network.

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RE: Chapter 6: How IPSec Complements MPLS

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:37:49 -0500

This is really interesting book, I am going to recommend this to 256 people in our company, Thanks to much, Mans

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Microsoft Subnet — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:49:59 -0400

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RE: AT&T launches service to optimize Web apps

loftenter — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:31:24 -0400

In our 13 year as an AT&T Solutions Partner we have had great success deploying AT&T MPLS networks for our customers. It will be interesting to see how AT&T can add these types of services to their existing offering. Justin Lofton Systems Engineer Tredent Data Systems, Inc. justinl@tredent.com http://www.tredent.com

RE: The complete guide to an MPLS migration

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:49:17 -0400

give me some more detail about MPLS.

Cooperative optimization

Inbox — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:12:21 -0400

Cooperative optimization is a new technology that addresses the cost and complexity of traffic management over large distributed networks with any-to-any connectivity (such as an MPLS network). It can fully handle the competition among users and applications while optimizing usage of network resources without implementing a device in each branch office.

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