Survey: Strong adoption of MPLS-based VPNs anticipated over next 18 months

We’re interrupting our discussion of frame relay over DSL for some hot-off-the-press results from a research study that Steve just completed at the Webtorials site. The Webtorials community was surveyed last month concerning their plans for and attitudes toward MPLS-based IP VPNs. The results from more than 200 networking professionals around the world confirmed a lot of our thinking and revealed a few surprising tidbits.

We’re interrupting our discussion of frame relay over DSL for some hot-off-the-press results from a research study that Steve just completed at the Webtorials site.  The Webtorials community was surveyed last month concerning their plans for and attitudes toward MPLS-based IP VPNs.  The results from more than 200 networking professionals around the world confirmed a lot of our thinking and revealed a few surprising tidbits.

In particular, the survey revealed that strong adoption of MPLS-based VPNs is anticipated over the next 18 months. In fact, this adoption rate is a bit more aggressive than we might have guessed.  Some 21% of respondents indicated that they were already making significant use of MPLS-based VPNs, and 38% indicated that they would begin significant use within the next year.

Probably the most surprising finding is that the majority of this growth will be at the expense of traditional frame relay services.  Over half of the respondents indicated that they would “decrease use somewhat” or “significantly decrease use” of traditional frame relay.  At the same time, 27% indicated that they would “increase use somewhat” of MPLS-based VPN services and an astounding 45% indicated that they would “significantly increase use” of VPN services.

We find this to be surprising primarily because the overall satisfaction with frame relay services is at the same level as satisfaction with MPLS-based VPN services.  So they’re not moving simply because of dissatisfaction with frame relay, rather, the primary drivers seem to be that they are looking for enhanced quality of service and better support for mesh networking.

We’ll dig a bit more deeply into some of these results in the future but in the meantime, you can hear an on-demand Webcast of Steve discussing the results at the link below. We’re also continuing to gather information on these trends, so we would really appreciate your input to a survey to collect information on your plans for WAN networking equipment, for which the link is also included below.