John, I think you brought an interesting topic.
With all these pitches about Layer 3 VPN, the question has been bothering me for a while, how many enterprises out there really need to have an any-to-any solution? Less than 0.5% is my guess. Most of the enterprise client/server applications fit into the hub-spoke topology pretty well, really have no reasons to get direct connections among their branches. Theoretically, MPLS should give the service providers the ability to provide more scalable and cheaper fully meshed VPN solution, as the SPs do not have to manage those hundreds of thousands PVCs, ect. From the enterprises' perspective, if this gives them a reliable and affordable alternative to the traditional hub-spoke frame relay network, it sounds attractive, but seems to me all the current implementations are even more expensive, not to mention their reliability probably is no where near the legacy frame network, at least not for a while. The vendors want to sell their MPLS VPN solutions to SPs, the SPs who built the network want to sell it enterprises , but my guess is that 99% enterprises will not buy it, not till... My .02 Kent ""John Neiberger"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > Okay, I'm about to show how clueless I am when it comes to MPLS.... > > I've been getting calls from multiple providers lately all trying to > suggest that I migrate our 100-site frame relay network to their MPLS > network, suggesting that we'll have any-to-any connectivity and the > ability to prioritize traffic classes within the MPLS network. > > Are any of you doing something like this? I'm going to read up on it > but I'm having trouble visualizing it. Does this basically turn our > network into a giant multipoint network? Do our branch routers need to > be aware of MPLS or do providers make this transparent somehow? How > does this affect routing? > > It seems that if we have any-to-any connectivity then the branch > routers don't even need to run a routing protocol; every router would > have one exit point to get to any destination. But, how would the MPLS > cloud know where to route packets? The more I think about it it seems > like our branch routers would have to participate in MPLS to provide the > necessary destination info for the MPLS cloud. > > See how clueless I am? Ugh... Time to do some studying on this. > Since we already do a little video conferencing over IP and are working > on getting VoIP working, it might be beneficial to get away from the > frame relay network. But since I don't understand this new technology, > I don't know if it's a viable solution for us or not. > > Off to CCO I go! > > Thanks, > John Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=37743&t=36670 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
