UNSi....Perfect Choice For Your MPLS Network Solution

UNSi provides a complete and cost-effective MPLS solution for businesses with multiple locations. UNSi provides multiple Internet access methods to accommodate various budgets, speeds and geographic locations all on ONE bill.

What You Should Know About UNSi

UNSi was founded in 2001 as American Broadband. UNSi also known as United Network Services, Inc., are reputable for managing broadband connectivity for companies with 100 locations and above. UNSi has one of the largest broadband aggregation databases in the country. With the recent acquisition of airband, UNSi added fixed wireless to their portfolio as well as VOIP services, and a stronger MPLS presence in the South. Here are a few more reasons why UNSi is a great fit for your business:

* Over 155,000 lit buildings across the country
* Services are backed by 24x7 NOC's
* 29 core POP's and over 150 NNI's
* UNSi does not conform to the traditional LATA boundaries as the older TDM and ILEC based Ethernet networks do. This makes their network extremely scalable and cost effective.
* UNSi has one of the largest broadband footprints – relationships with over 2,000 providers.
* UNSi also offers a total network solution all on one bill, for businesses with multiple locations.

UNSi Products:

* CloudMPLS
* MPLS
* Ethernet
* Unified Communications
* DIA
* VPLS
* Broadband
* Managed Services
* Hosted Monitoring

To find out more about how UNSi can help your business, simply request more information and a FREE quote here....

MPLS Networks

Read More

Introduction To MPLS

This is kind of a long video .... but there's a ton of useful information about MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) ....both technical and practical.

To take advantage of MPLS for your network simply request a free quote and more information here ....

MPLS Networks

Read More

Benefits Of An MPLS Network Solution

Benefits of an MPLS Network Solution
By Jon Arnold

Introduction to MPLS

Are you considering a new type of network infrastructure to help you reach higher service quality? MPLS could be the answer. MPLS networking is a new way of gaining many benefits of a traditional point-to-point network while avoiding issues that arise when you older less stable and inefficient network infrastructures. It is also much easier to configure than a point-to-point network, ensuring that you retain the flexibility you expect from frame relay" or another time-tested configuration, as well as introducing new options you didn't have available before.

Background of the MPLS Standard

MPLS stands for Multi Protocol Label Switching. It implies a type of network that is independent of content restrictions and can carry any type of data that you need on the most efficient path; this remains true whether you transmit voice, video, data or anything else. Like a frame relay network, MPLS networks are focused on efficiency and speed. However, MPLS supersedes frame relay in a number of ways thanks to the intelligent routing and more efficient transmission standard used.

Benefits of the MPLS Standard

By its nature, MPLS networks can save you a great deal of money over older approaches. MPLS standards eschew paths through public networks for paths that predominantly use private network resources. This helps you control issues like latency and data fidelity, ensuring less data dropped during transmission. MPLS is more efficient and tends to have more uptime than the traditional networks because it makes use of modern network core technology instead of the smaller cells favored in frame relay networks. Even so, it offers great control over data's path from source to destination.

Upgrading to MPLS

Effective use and implementation of your MPLS network solution will require access to a private network with careful management and optimization policies. MPLS is typically conceived of as a "cloud" service that offers multiple paths, all with near-optimal performance, for any given transmission across a wide area. MPLS is often configured as a large network with a dedicated circuit access point at each node, so mid-sized and smaller businesses will often purchase MPLS service from a major provider. After that, configuration is the main issue.

One of the major beauties of the MPLS architecture is that the same size circuit is not required at each node, as it would be with frame relay or point to point networks. For example, node A could have 50 MB MPLS Ethernet (headquarters) while nodes B through G (branch offices) might just have an MPLS T1 or bonded T1 which would be reflective of the level of traffic anticipated at each node, and sized accordingly, thereby saving you money.

Conclusion

MPLS is a major innovation compared to Frame Relay and it can save you enormous amounts on your network costs. To gain the benefits of an MPLS infrastructure, it is a good idea to seek out a trusted provider of MPLS network services who can answer your questions about adopting this great new paradigm for your business.

If you are still using old point to point networks or frame relay networks, you are more than likely spending much more than you need to in order to accomplish the same thing that an MPLS network can do for you, and then some. Find out who can deliver an efficient and cost effective MPLS network solution today and slash your telecom costs.

Read More

Choosing The Right MPLS Network Service Provider

Choosing The Right MPLS Network Service Provider
By Jon Arnold

MPLS is an acronym which stands for Multi Protocol Label Switching. That is a fancy name for this but an MPLS circuit is one that combines the best features of the older style traditional point to point circuits and the even older frame relay circuits into a single circuit, and then add more functionality on top of all that.

What an MPLS circuit does at its base level is allow you to connect multiple offices in different locations in the same way that you would with a point to point network. But you are not limited to the PTP hub and spoke configuration, which is both inefficient as well as expensive. With MPLS technology, you are not paying a per-mile charge between locations as you would with PTP or frame relay, making MPLS much less expensive to accomplish the same thing. For example, an MPLS network between a node in New York and a node in Cleveland would be within pennies of the same price as having one MPLS node in New York and another MPLS node in Seattle. In other words, the distance between the nodes is immaterial.

MPLS circuits are also secure and private since the data does not travel over the public Internet. It is your own private and secure network.

What factors should be considered when choosing an MPLS network service provider? Let's look at some of those factors here:

1. Customer Service

This is of paramount importance with any service provider. Make sure you find a service provider who has outstanding customer service and offers it 24x7. Also make sure their tech support is top-notch and that they are always available to answer any question that might arise at any time. This is particularly important during the setup and configuration phase.

2. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Be sure to choose a carrier which will provide a SLA (Service Level Agreement) that is acceptable to you. This agreement will answer such questions as what is the acceptable level of downtime that you can expect with the circuits. This document spells it out all so everybody is on the same page.

3. Management of the MPLS Network

It is crucial to make sure that you understand who does the management of your MPLS network and to what degree. Most reliable carriers today sell MPLS circuits which include a carrier-provided and carrier-managed router, which means they have responsibility for managing it, but make sure you understand what you can and cannot do in terms of management of it.

4. Does This Carrier Service All Your Locations

MPLS is not a standard such as having specifications defined and ratified by an organization like the IEEE. Rather, MPLS is a methodology or an approach to solving a telecommunications problem. What this means to you is that every carrier has implemented MPLS slightly differently, and your best chances for success are using the same carrier at all nodes of your MPLS network.

Notice that we did not mention price as a factor. Yes, price is always a factor but in today's world, you need to be concerned much more with "best value" than "lowest price". Particularly in telecom, you get what you pay for, and if you find a great price on MPLS from unknown carrier XYZ, there is a good chance that you are putting your network at risk for non-performance.

Choosing a MPLS service provider is not a simple task. You should use a telecom broker who can honestly and frankly tell you which carriers should be considered and which should not, based on the locations you need to interconnect. Depending on your locations, even a "brand name" may not be your best option.

Allow us to be your telecom broker and help you with your selection of an MPLS service provider. We represent more than 35 first tier carriers, and based on the volume of business we provide for them every month, they allow us to guarantee that the quotes we provide you are the lowest that the carrier will offer. We also known which carriers are good and which may be a question mark for the sites that you want to connect, and are more than happy to share that inside knowledge with you. When shopping for your best value in an MPLS Network and need to find the best MPLS Service Provider who can meet your needs, please make sure you talk with us to get your MPLS quotes.

Read More

MPLS Explained

Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a standardized protocol to enable high performance IP networks. It provides fast response time for applications running on your WAN, security without scaling problems and with a lower cost structure. To both simplify and increase the efficiency of the network, the MPLS protocol enables data to be transmitted efficiently across a network infrastructure utilizing a technology known as “label switching.” This is much more effective than running a VPN over the Internet.

Key application: MPLS enables the creation of secure, reliable VPNs which are simple to manage, easy to deploy and which provide Class of Service/Quality of Service (QoS) support. The result is a single integrated IP network which supports quality of service, which is the key advantage in an application rich environment. This means you can implement VoIP and prioritize your applications ahead of the best-effort non-critical data. You have the reliability & security of legacy technologies like Frame Relay with the routing flexibility of IP. For applications such as Siebel, Oracle, Peoplesoft and other client-server applications, the productivity gains using MPLS versus a VPN over the Internet are substantial. If you use a Frame Relay, MPLS will improve your network flexibility, simplify management and reduce your costs.

Now that you know what MPLS is, let us explain how the system works. As your corporate data enters the carrier network, a label is attached to each packet. This label uniquely identifies your Virtual Private Network (VPN) in a shared infrastructure and keeps it private. Upon reaching its destination, the label is removed, returning the data packet to its original state. The process is seamless and unnoticeable to end-users. One can think of MPLS in this context as a “special delivery courier service” for your network data.

The “label” essentially replaces traditional Internet packet forwarding, where complicated address matching is performed at each hop in the network. The label describes how the packet should be handled within the network and thus assigns the packet to a Class of Service (CoS). Thus, all packets which belong to the same CoS get treated in the same way and quickly are sped along their way.

The result is that your data traffic is delivered quickly and securely and your applications perform faster than with other technologies, such as running a VPN over the Internet.

To learn how your business can best take advantage of MPLS to meet your business network requirements, including a comparison of available providers, simply request a free quote here ...

MPLS Network Solution

Read More

Tips On How To Migrate To A MPLS Network Architecture For Your Business

So your boss has heard of MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) and is all excited about the possibilities it holds for your company's voice and data network. The positives to your network reliability, performance, and cost make it seem to be a no brainer. But...you're not sure how to migrate from your existing traditional WAN (Wide Area Network) configuration to MPLS.

You're tasked with investigating if moving your company's network from a point-to-point T1 WAN architecture to a MPLS architecture makes business sense.

The easy answer here is yes. It most cases of course it does.

But.... why? And more importantly.... How do you accomplish the changeover?

In looking at changing your architecture from Point to Point to an MPLS type of network I suggest starting with the business requirements and tying your network requirements to the business needs. In this manner, you'll have clear business outcomes for comparison when you start getting the cost vs benefits discussion involved when developing your business case for investment.

A robust Total Cost of Ownership model will be needed to understand what the TCO will be going forwards. Also, I'd suggest developing a strong understanding of the costs of doing nothing and also the potential savings or new revenue opportunities for your business so you can develop a Net Present Value (NPV) of your network options.

I would also recommend looking at the interfaces you're looking to support in the network. MPLS does enable you to have a common protocol across all your networks and you can effectively establish an MPLS Cross Connect in your network. This will rely on how your local service providers will provide MPLS services to you, if at all. So you would most likely need to purchase either point to point or point to multipoint based transmission services from your provider. We're seeing that many enterprises and service providers are heading towards ethernet ubiquity as a service interface and then offering multiple services on top of the ethernet interface.

VoIP works well across an MPLS type of network, however it does depend on the services that you purchase off your service provider. As you're looking at MPLS, then I assume that you're looking at buying straight transmission services and then you'll use MPLS to aggregate traffic into your WAN links. Hence, you're business case is going to be driven by arbitrage opportunities so capture as much traffic as possible onto your network and apply QoS at the edge.

From a QoS perspective, ensure that you can also apply policing to the traffic that goes onto your WAN traffic. I recommend applying Hierarchical QoS as this will enable you to dynamically share the bandwidth in your WAN links.

As you can tell, there are lots of issues and questions that need to be addressed so I'd suggest working closely with some trusted partners and driving towards an outcome based business drivers and commercial outcomes.

We have worked with many customers that have migrated to MPLS from old school point to point. There are a few reasons our customers did this, but let me assure you the #1 reason was cost. A good competitive carrier will offer an MPLS solution that is sometimes less costly than the old point to point type solution..... with most of the same or more functionality.

But there are some factors:

1. If the point to points are crossing state or lata boundaries..... or are fairly separated by miles.... you should enjoy considerable savings.

2. If you get a carrier that bundles MPLS with an Integrated Access type solution you will save big money (combination of voice, internet & MPLS delivered on one T1 with quality of service).

Here's some additional points that might help you.

1. Is it redundant? Yes, depending on how you design your network (we can help you of course) sites can network with each other over your wide area network for disaster recovery/ redundancy. Unlike the traditional point to point architecture where you might only be as strong as that single link. We helped a huge national company with a migration from point to point and frame relay to MPLS. The big reason was with so many sites there was an outage almost every day. The network was designed with redundancy as the main driver.

2. Does it work as well? It depends who you ask. Are you talking to a salesman? He will say yes. Let me give you my "consultant" opinion. It works ALMOST as well but there are so many benefits to MPLS that typically motivate a customer to change. For example, if you have Quality of Service (QoS) sensitive applications running across your WAN then you should consider MPLS. MPLS is a private networking technology similar to the concept of Frame Relay in that it is delivered in the "cloud". The primary difference with MPLS is that you can purchase quality of service for applications across your WAN. During the provisioning process the carrier (or your agent-wink wink) will interview you in order to determine which applications are important to your business, they will then build a QoS template to service these applications on your WAN. These applications will be given priority over all other traffic in times of peak load. MPLS is by far the most costly solution between Frame Relay, VPN and MPLS.... but is the only technology that will support QoS!

But let's put the salesman aside and remember one thing. With MPLS we are using the carrier's private network which is infinitely better than creating your own VPN. But because of some "overhead" and the belief that all carriers over-subscribe somewhat I am convinced that it's ALMOST as good.

So if it's almost as good would it be worth migrating if you could enjoy cost savings & redundancy??? Maybe. But these are the things that are making MPLS the hot ticket now.

3. Does this work well with VOIP? Sure. You can get QoS like I stated above.

MPLS is an IP-based framing technology (at OSI layer 3) that inherently meshes your WAN (this is the redundancy you refer to above). MPLS has a feature called QoS or quality of service. This feature allows both your CPE router and the carrier's network to prioritize data based upon your settings or preferences (carrier's level of support of QoS can be broad) and gives you more "bang for your buck" with the bandwidth that you select for the local loop going to each office. MPLS is made for VoIP like RC Cola is made for Moonpies. Because true "toll quality" VoIP requires prioritization across a carrier network, you (or your provider) can tag VoIP traffic with high priority to easily address the jitter and latency sensitivity inherent in the service.

The other huge advantage you have is that you can add locations with a simple routing table update and maintain a fully-meshed architecture, where with Point to Point circuits, you would have had to add a separate circuit to each location you want to interconnect, making MPLS more and more cost friendly the more locations you add.

Finally, MPLS allows you (or your carrier) to configure network objects (such as servers, VPN concentrators, and Network-Based Firewalls) as nodes on your MPLS network. For instance, with a properly deployed Network Based Firewall, you can provide all of your locations with an internet connection over your MPLS network that doesn't rely on a single location to aggregate the traffic. Some carriers even offer redundant firewalls, meaning that you have redundant Internet connections fully meshed giving you more potential up-time in the case of a single failure on your network.

What do you need to consider? In my experience, the biggest things to keep in mind are:

- Stay away from MPLS enabled Frame/ATM networks with committed access rates (CAR), this committed access rate is often a lower bandwidth than your local loop bandwidth, which can degrade your quality and quantity of bandwidth across a carrier's network (its always in the fine print).

- QoS at the "Edge" and across the "Core" - choose a carrier with both.

- QoS recognition across the carrier network - some carriers will allow customers to mark packets with priority, but will not recognize and uphold that priority, don't fall into this trap.

- SLA guarantees - be sure to choose a carrier that provides acceptable service level agreements for the type of service you plan to push across your network

- Customer Service and dedicated sales rep - you want someone you can reach out to with questions that you can trust - this is the most difficult thing to find.

For free assistance designing the right MPLS configuration for your network.... and sourcing the most cost effective provider..... I suggest you take advantage of the resources available at MPLS Networks

Read More

MPLS Case Studies and More For ACC Business, Telnes, Advantix, and Netwolves

In the month of January we hosted three fantastic case studies highlighting the unique MPLS network capabilities of ACC Business and Telnes.

Other calls highlighted an end user's experience with Advantix and how NetWolves helped support a request for a 45,000+ location network.

The following calls are now available online....

* ACC Business

* Telnes

* Advantix

* NetWolves

To take advantage of any of the offerings for your data or voice network from ACC Business, Telnes, Advantix, or NetWolves ... simply request a free rate quote here:

MPLS Networks And More

Read More

MPLS Network Design .... What's Important

Before jumping into MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) for your network design there's important items to consider. Take a step back and first consider what you need your network to do, how, and what must happen if there are issues.

Intent of the network is definitely a critical piece. It is so important to understand what you are putting over the network in order to engineer the optimal network. I've had the same conversations with clients when they realize that they can't have as many call paths as they would like and still be able to surf the net.

Also, business continuity is definitely key. Documenting the plan and understanding how traffic should flow in the event the primary path is unavailable for any reason ensures you have survivability in the instance of an interruption of service or outage of any kind.

If you understand the intent, you can accurately plan for outages or interruptions in your disaster plan. Most times, you don't need to have every type of traffic pass over the MPLS during an outage. You need to understand what is most important to your business, what has the biggest impact on your revenue, and then design a plan that ensures that you don't lose that piece of the puzzle for any length of time.

I think the most important piece is not even the Disaster Recovery plan, but more so the "business continuity" piece. The reality is you want the design to be flawless and address the rare occasion prior to it happening. With having a "business continuity" plan in place this allows for you to continue business seamlessly in the event something does happen. The Disaster Recovery plan will only address how do you recover in the event of an outage, cost, and time associated with the disaster. Business continuity will minimize that impact of these three and ensure you are still operational during this time. The other important pieces of course are the speed and security of the network.

Also key now that I think about it is default route pathing. This ties in to the intent of the network. Even if the original intent of the MPLS network is not to pass internet traffic .... having dynamic routing on the core so that one site can piggy back off of another in the case of an internet connection outage at one of the sites, is often one of the most useful side features that everyone always seems to forget or overlook. Sometimes this can be done with you changing your firewall/router's default gateway to point to the MPLS hop manually or can be done with OSPF/EIGRP.

For no cost help designing your MPLS network .... including free rate quote comparisons from multiple providers ... simply request assistance here:

MPLS Networks

Read More

MPLS Networks vs Frame Relay .... Is MPLS Here To Stay?

When considering MPLS Networks vs Frame relay for your network design it's not really a fair comparison.

First, MPLS will not replace Frame Relay. They are not in the same Layer. So let's put that one to rest.

Another way to ask is... what is the future of Frame? It's all but done - there are too many other cost effective ways to transport bits that can maintain an application's throughput requirements.

HOWEVER, there are still active Frame ports out there, and will be for a long time. Just look at how long it took X.25 to fade away.

The FUNNY part is, that the Frame Relay concept is on it's way back; just carried on a lower cost and more accessible transport method.

Of course not all Frame will disappear. Just like some people still have cell phones that have the same basic functionality as they did 15 years ago .... but the rest of us at least have phones with advanced functionality if not smartphones. They may have a very specific reason, or be complacent in upgrading their technology, but that doesn't mean it's a viable product. The carriers want to eliminate those networks because the market has moved to IP and MPLS, for very good reason, and maintaining those old ATM networks are costly.

Another parallel to phones is that the market has moved significantly toward applications (like communication as a service, infrastructure as a service, cloud computing, etc) since MPLS was productized. These applications are the drivers of MPLS networks ... and now VPLS ... and cannot be supported in nearly as efficient, secure or redundant manner with Frame/ATM because of MPLS' QoS, any-to-any connectivity, private network topology, etc.

Frame may not be dead, but it's a dead man walking. Businesses that have it, and agents trying to sell it, need to shift their paradigm. MPLS is here to stay, it's a commodity now for the most part, and the differentiators are what applications and managed services the carriers are running on the network.

For no cost help designing a MPLS network for your business .... including free rate quote comparisons ... simply request assistance here:

MPLS Networks

Read More

MPLS vs PBB-TE .... Which Technology Is The Best Backbone For An Enterprise Telecom Network?

MPLS-TP vs PBB-TE .....

In the quest to packetize transport networks, Ethernet tunneling technologies T-MPLS and PBB-TE have been the top contenders. Another flavor of T-MPLS has also emerged - MPLS-TP. The pro-MPLS camp is declaring victory, but skeptics maintain that MPLS is a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem. Is PBB-TE a more advanced and future technology? Will the carriers and OEMS start adopting PBB-TE to replace the MPLS deployment?

This is not a war you can expect to see "won or lost", as the various technologies are not black and white choices - they have to interwork.

Telecoms choices depend on many factors and technical merit is only part of that.

Installed base, flexibility and migration can matter more.

For example if a business decided to deploy a new flavour of backbone switching on a new type of box from a new vendor, then the training involved for operations staff would include 100s operations staff and field engineers, and man weeks of effort per person to get ready for use.

Anything you picked against that background would have to have overwhelming advantages to justify it, and I do not think a new varient of flavor of layer 2 packet switching will hack it.

What is much more likely is you choose "something" for a specific requirement. There is a smaller hill to climb if it comes from an existing installed vendor, uses the same type of skills and is backward compatible. There is even less if the same box does multiple jobs or roles in the network, or is an upgrade for something you already use.

That isn't to say step changes do not happen - but the implications mean it will not happen often.

Vendors know the essence of this conversation, since it happens whenever they take their new toys to a potential customer.

Customers view with suspicion any story which begins "we have this killer technology which makes everything else obsolete, and you can throw away your old stuff" ..... because it ignores real life and the installed base. They turn nasty when it continues "and this is unique and you can only get it from us".......

So from a vendor point of view - if you can build boxes that support PBB etc and MPLS etc, then why bet the product line on 1 or the other, until and unless it has overwhelming advantages or one requirement becomes dominant in the market?

The flip side is it means some of the advantages touted for such technologies are irrelevant in practice - PBB may mean less internal table size, but the "box" that uses it should be usable with the competitor standards to reasonable scale as part of "investment protection", so probably is not tuned to that - exit 1 set of advantages.

In the end this question can't really be answered as stated. There isn't a single obvious "winner" .... just creative options and an ever evolving landscape in which the decision of "what to do" for a business needs to be based on the business itself not technology.

For help navigating the maze of decisions points to arrive at what makes the most sense for your network .... take advantage of this free resource:

Network Solutions

Read More

MPLS vs VPLS .... Which Is The Best Choice For Your Organization's Network?

MPLS is the typical underlying plumbing for a carrier style network core that can support L3 VPNs, VPLS and various other services, although other "stuff" can be used.

MPLS is the common way to do this and seems to be "best common practice" right now.

The carriers need big, large scale, flexible core networks that can support traffic from lots of customers on a common set of equipment and resilient WAN links, but provide separation between them.

VPLS mainly assumes Ethernet delivery, so can be good where that is available for all your needed locations, but may be limiting.

VPLS emulates a switched Ethernet LAN and as such suffers from the related scaling and diagnostic issues - i would not want to use VPLS to connect more than a few dozen sites in a single network, and you will need routers to control traffic well before that point.

Some other "Ethernet over cloud" type systems give different sets of tradeoffs - Ethernet pseudowire services for example scale better but need more detail design and planning.

L3 VPNs will work with any type of access - conventional 1.5m and 2m links may be all you can get in some places / countries, or you might need VSAT for that location in Africa and so on....

Many carriers have NNI links to others for L3 VPNs, so you can get to places outside their geography. International broadcasters for example may want links to every continent.

L3 is easier to use with QoS, works better with multicast and various others services.

L3 means the carrier(s) are involved in the IP topology, and in turn that may limit what protocols you can use - that may work well for you or just cause more hassle.

None of these issues are black and white, but a specific set of requirements will "push" you towards 1 type of system.

And real life is complicated - you may end up using both for a big network.

Technical jargon aside, I would break down the CIO’s comparison of the two technologies into two main categories:

1) Immediate Impact on the Organization’s Strategy

a. How does each technology meet the organization’s short-term needs/requirements?

b. What value does each technology add to both the organization (and the IT group)?

c. What’s the immediate impact on application performance (i.e. User Experience, etc…)?

d. What’s the immediate impact as it relates to budget?

2) Long-Term support for changes to that Strategy

a. Which solution can easily support business changes?

i. Do both solutions scale geographically?

ii. Can both solutions support ancillary services?

b. Which solution best supports technological changes in the business?

i. Consolidation/Centralization Strategies

ii. Convergence Strategies

iii. Cloud / SaaS Strategies

c. What impact, if any, does either solution have on

i. Long-term revenue generation.…

ii. Long-term cost containment.…

In other words ... do a solid business case analysis. NOT just a technical review. Accomplishing this will also help you when it comes time to "sell it" to senior management.

For free assistance navigating through the process I recommend taking advantage of the service offered here

MPLS Solutions

Read More

More On The Pros And Cons Of MPLS Migration

Cons or Negatives ....

1) First of all you won't find too many "cons" but let me share a few with you that we had run into. First off SOMETIMES the pricing on Frame is so low it's very difficult to justify on price alone to make such a change. Of course when you see the "pros" they typically outweigh a hundred bucks a site or whatever.

2) Typical pains of migration might be your 2nd "con". Anytime you are making a move from one technology to another there will be some issues. Anyone who says there will be no issues is a salesperson in a bad way. The fact is you are installing a new circuit, new equipment, etc. Did they tell you the dmarc had to be extended at EVERY site?

3) The third and I think final issue is having to negotiate a new contract. You are probably out of contract and are feeling free as a bird, aren't you? Well if you want MPLS you are going to have to recommit to more than likely a standard 24 or 36 month agreement. If you are getting free equipment and free activation more than likely you'll be looking at 36 months with most carriers.

Now let's talk about the "pros" or the positives. There are many and I guarantee you I am going to miss many positives just because I am writing off the cuff here.

Pros or Positives ....

1) Pricing is often a huge plus. Yes, I know I said pricing is sometimes a negative. But typically you'll save money on converting a large Frame network with all the PVC charges and outdated Frame bundle pricing to a slick MPLS network. Especially if you are coming off Frame from your typical carriers like Qwest, for example.

2) Better communication between sites. MPLS is fully meshed so each site can communicate to the other site! There's much more to this positive and would take a book to explain it all.

3) Faster internet, more bandwidth, more "throughput" are all benefits of converting to MPLS from Frame Relay. Most of my Frame Relay customers had 1.5 Mbps with a CIR (committed information rate) often of half of that rate or less. That means the carrier will NOT guarantee a full T1 speed of 1.5 Mbps. So on an oversubscribed and congested network, for example a bank, users were complaining that getting into their terminal servers and such was time consuming. They figured they were losing tens of thousands of dollars a month on this alone. This is a common irritation among Frame Relay customers.

4) You now have the option of converging your voice and data network. Converging your networks is the latest thing to do for many reasons. For exampleoing to SIP eventually to save big bucks on your voice network. MPLS is necessary to do this effectively.

5) Fully Meshed Network.

6) QoS.

7) Brand New Equipment.

8) Fast Re-route.

For additional assistance specific to designing just the right MPLS architecture for your network .... go to:

Design An MPLS Network

Read More

Pros and Cons Of MPLS Migration

When considering a migration to a MPLS data network from your current architecture .... plenty of info is available on the Web. Some resources are given below ... Bluntly, there is no one right answer, it depends on the requirements of your organization. A few questions you need to ask to arrive at the answer are ...

1. Do you plan to ramp up your network ... scale up the number of subscribers? If yes, this a good option. It allows optimum bandwidth usage and is flexible with T1, T3, satellite, and wireless connections. Huge networks can be managed with lesser number of labels for packet forwarding, such that they scale to corporate firm’s network expansion.

2. Cost savings? I am assuming yes for this one ... Depending on the types of applications, MPLS reduces costs by up to 25% over comparable point to point T1 links. With voice (VOIP - voice over internet protocol) and video traffic (video/web conferencing), savings can rise to as much as 40%.

3.Ensure QoS ... One of the main benefits of MPLS networks is the ability to support QoS/CoS, important for companies that run VOIP, videoconferencing, ERP, CRM, etc.

4. What is your budget ...? MPLS is not cheap. Work out your ROI

5. Security ... An improperly configured MPLS network is hard to troubleshoot and leaks user routes.

These were some random thoughts in no particular order. For more detailed discussion of the process you should go through I recommend that you read this article:

Tips on How to Migrate to a MPLS Network Architecture For Your Business

Read More

MPLS …. What’s In The Future?

MPLS is a convergence of various implementations of "IP switching" that use ATM-like Label Swapping to speed up IP packet forwarding without changes to existing IP routing protocols operating at Layer 2.5. The major motivations behind MPLS are higher scalability, faster packet forwarding performance, IP + ATM integration, Traffic Engineering, MPLS Virtual Private Networks, fast rerouting, and hard Quality of Service.

The deployment of MPLS in service provider Internet backbones has become possible since it is transparent to the end user. consequentially, at the architectural level, it has changed the basic longest match destination-based unicast-forwarding model, which has remained essentially unchanged since the inception of the Internet. In turn, it also impacts the routing architecture, requiring that routing protocols perform new and more complex routing tasks.

As the Internet continues to develop into a medium for the convergence of voice, video, and data communications, it has been growing (and envisaged to continue to grow) in terms of bandwidth, number of hosts, geographic size, and traffic volume. It has evolved from best-effort service toward an integrated or differentiated services framework with quality of service (QoS) assurances, which are necessary for many new applications such as Managed VPNs, Voice over IP, videoconferencing, and broadband multimedia services.

Service Provider backbone infrastructures are currently used to provide multiple services such as TDM leased lines, ATM, Frame Relay, Voice, video, and Internet services. ATM backbones, that were popular in the past due to their reliability and versatility in offering multiple service types were found not to integrate very well with IP and there are serious scalability issues that need to be dealt with, when running IP over ATM.

Hence, MPLS is here to stay for quite some time still. As the Internet metamorphoses into a combo of data, voice, video, Telepresence, and who knows what else, MPLS will keep growing with newer features and more flexibility being introduced to meet ongoing versatile demands at a well maintained regularity by the IETF MPLS Work Group and related standardization bodies.

If you’d like more information on MPLS peruse the many articles on the subject at:

MPLS Articles

If you’d like assistance in finding the most cost effective MPLS solution for your network ….. at absolutely ZERO cost to you ….. simply submit a request here:

MPLS Network

Read More

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) …. The Basics

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) …. The Basics

MPLS is the protocol technology used by businesses and organizations to build Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are provided by telecommunications/service provider companies …. e.g. Verizon, AT&T and BT. MPLS enables organizations to use a shared (virtual) data communications network rather than building its own private point-to-point data communications network using carriers relatively expensive leased line services.

MPLS is arguably one of the best standards to come out of the IETF. Small to large organizations around the globe have deployed MPLS in their networks because of the cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and scalability inherent in it. When you consider the challenge, risk and cost of serving more users in remote locations or branch offices, with an increasing number of devices for connectivity, and the expectation of delivering business-class voice as an application, MPLS is the answer. It's often thought of as the super smart traffic engineer controlling at the packet level.

This matrix compares MPLS VPN to traditional frame relay and IPSec VPN in an easily digestible way:

Comparing MPLS To VPN To Frame Relay

The cost of an MPLS-based VPN is based on three factors ….

1. Data network port speed i.e. how fast the data enters/exits the service providers network

2. Access type i.e. technology and speed between the customer site and service providers network (POP)

3. Relative priority and criticality of the business application using the network

Importantly, an MPLS network avoids having to connect every site to every other site …. E.g. N x N connections. Instead every site connects to the service provider’s network at Points-of-Presence (Pops) …. making a solution more cost efficient and more reliable.

The factors that decide the suitability include ….

• Number of sites
• Site locations; e.g. local area, in-country, worldwide
• Bandwidth required; e.g. sub-2Mbps, 2Mbps, 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps
• Data Centre location(s)
• Minimum Performance requirements; e.g. end-to-end delay, packet loss
• Availability (reliability) of service defined by Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Application types and requirements; e.g. SAP, Siebel, email, intranet, telephony (see below)
• Cost; access, speed, customer-edge (CE) routers

Un-avoidably some sites will require dedicated point-to-point connects e.g. high-speed connections between data-centres. Also, where a local telecommunications company has a high-speed service it can often make sense to connect local sites together to form a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network). Therefore a solution often consists of MPLS and various point-to-point services.

Telephony over MPLS-based VPNs …. Most multinational companies will place significant numbers of telephone calls between their own offices. Each and every telephone call will incur a local, national or international call charge normally based on distance, duration and time-of-day. Accumulated, these telephone calls are often a significant cost to the business but essential to doing business. Conversely an MPLS-based VPN has a fixed cost however much the network is used and the distance between users. Global Voice Networking provides a Voice VPN service to exploit the MPLS model without incurring large upfront voice platform upgrade costs.

Now that you have the basics ….. for help deciding the best MPLS configuration and most cost effective provider of that solution ..… I strongly recommend the free assistance available from MPLS Network Solution

Read More

Definition Of MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching)

The simplest definition for MPLS is .... it's "Frame Relay 2.0".

MPLS is a good bet if you want a more predictable performance than you can get with internet-based VPN, but can't financially justify point-to-point connections. All the major carriers have fairly mature MPLS-like products out now.

Virtually any distributed organization with a need for location-to-location communications is a good fit for MPLS. However, don’t forget to look at things that might be potential disqualifiers …..

* Make sure the carrier you choose has coverage in most/all locations you may want served.

* If there are existing MPLS/frame networks in place, see if someone can mesh them into a new network.

* Consider the total cost of the network, including both the start-up and wrap-up costs. Often you can ask the carrier to make your contracts sync up with expiration dates, but it's something you need to do at the beginning.

* Think about the implementation and support requirements, and physical deployment. I've had good results with carriers doing the legwork, but it's a tradeoff on speed of deployment.

The factors to decide your choice for adoption of MPLS should be relatively simpler. Apart from the inherent cost benefits on hardware involved ….. it makes better sense to deploy a network (on MPLS). Especially considering the scaling up that may happen in the days to come because businesses are growing fast and furious. One of the obvious choices for MPLS deployments is an organization which has multiple sites that need to communicate privately to each other. On the flip side, I would not suggest MPLS for businesses whose network (size) is small and limited.

MPLS deployments worldwide, nowadays, are strongly related to VoIP deployments. Organizations planning to deploy applications like VoIP are also planning to configure QoS policies. MPLS lends a ready-made fabric in doing so.

Today, when you talk to businesses about their planned MPLS deployments, many of them point to VoIP deployment as one of the prime reasons for deploying MPLS. This is indeed right if you consider the fact voice traffic follows an any-to-any pattern ….. and MPLS offers the any-to-any connectivity required. What’s more, MPLS enables you to provide that desired (rather highest!) level of prioritized, network level performance to carry Voice.

Quiet a few businesses have asked me, “Is MPLS ready for prime time?”. The fact is that today’s service providers are increasingly replacing their ATM services with that of MPLS. Mobile Carriers are on a fast track mode to have an MPLS backbone to carry large volumes of voice. The choice is right, considering that MPLS provides all the benefits that you to tend to have from ATM and much more. MPLS provides increased control, simplicity and manageability. These will translate into better service quality for end users.

Keep this in mind too. MPLS does not do away with your legacy deployments – ATM, IP, TDM etc.

MPLS will typically be more costly than Internet-based VPN solutions, but you get guaranteed end-to-end performance. If you have ever priced out a frame relay network, you can expect the pricing to be similar. (In many cases FR is part of the underlying edge transport)

Finally, I'd make sure user expectations of QoS are reasonable. It does work well if you understand the limitations and use it sparingly - i.e. prioritizing traffic that is a small percentage of total bandwidth. Remember that MPLS doesn't actually change the capacity of a circuit (a T1 with full-motion videoconferencing is still doing to get clobbered the second someone opens iTunes in the office)

If you need help deciding the best MPLS configuration for your business …. and the most cost effective provider of that solution ..… I strongly recommend the free assistance available from MPLS Network Solution

Read More