What are MPLS VPN Services?
In listening to all the presentations at MPLScon, it struck me that there’s something rather basic that the MPLS, Service Provider, and journalistic communities have maybe not communicated very clearly to the networking public. To see this, realize that MPLS comes in two very distinct flavors: • Internal MPLS is where you already have links of various kinds, and you’re deploying your own internal MPLS. This is usually done by Service Providers or Large Enterprise / Government organizations. Any use of VPN’s is for private links or private routing tables, presumably to isolate and provide security between sub-entities (business units, government departments, etc.). • Buyer of MPLS VPN Services is where you’re buying a WAN or MAN which just happens to be based on MPLS. There’s one other very solid reason I think this distinction is important. If you’re a buyer of MPLS VPN Services, you do NOT need to start by learning MPLS first! All the MPLS is on the provider side. Knowing some MPLS ca
