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MPLS: Reliable, But Comes with a Price The popularity of MPLS deployments in corporate WAN infrastructures comes from its predictability. Service providers can use MPLS to improve quality of service (QoS) by defining network paths that meet pre-set service level agreements (SLAs) on traffic latency, jitter, packet loss, and downtime.
Anyone whos purchased MPLS bandwidth has experienced the surreal. While at home you might spend $50 for a 50 Mbps Internet link, MPLS services can cost 10 times more for a fraction of the bandwidth. Start by addressing the core questions to know if the Internet can play a role in part or entirely as your next backbone.
Which architectural approach will best serve your needs MPLS, public internet or cloud networks? The Pros and Cons of Public Internet Ordinary broadband Internet is inexpensive and widely available. Despite price erosion, MPLS services remain significantly more expensive than Internet services.
Its no secret that the legacy WAN faces many challenges adapting to todays business, the big question is: Whats going to replace MPLS? Legacy WAN architectures based on MPLS services provide predictable performance between offices, but theyre not implemented in a way that easily accommodates the new realities facing IT.
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) adoption is on the rise in the enterprise and with that comes significant impact for IT managers considering how their MPLS network transformation. Internetaccess remains tightly controlled, with only large, or headquarters facilities having local Internet connectivity.
SD-WAN Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is a virtual WAN architecture offering optimized traffic routing over multiple different media (broadband, MPLS, 5G/LTE, etc.). By choosing the best available path, SD-WAN provides better performance and reliability than broadband Internet.
As mobile users connect directly to the internet through unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and offices access cloud resources via direct internetaccess, the attack surface grows. When the portals sit near or within the path to the Internet destinations, the performance impact of such an architecture is usually nominal.
Security between locations, though, was not an issue provided the WAN was based, as most were, on a private MPLS service. With its ability to separate customer traffic, MPLS services give enterprise IT professionals enough confidence to send data unencrypted between locations. This requires a shift in our security models.
It is easy for an enterprise to fall into a false sense of security because they can view all the traffic traversing MPLS links. The problem is today enterprise WANs are a mix of MPLS, Internet-based VPNs, mobile users, and cloud services. I can even see down to a single person and how much bandwidth (s)he is using.
One of the key requirements of Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) is the ability to connect to service providers via the Internet. As I discussed in my previous blog , few companies, especially global organizations, have Internetaccess at every branch. An architectural example is shown below.
Comparing Both Ends of the Spectrum An appliance-based solution allows organizations to manage and direct their SD-WAN solution and utilize various Internet connection options, rather than being tied to a particular carrier. With no backbone to send traffic over to provide consistent connectivity, Internet connections are unpredictable.
Examples include: Mission critical locations, such as datacenters or regional hubs, can be connected by active-active, dual homed fiber connections managed and monitor 24×7 by an external provider — and with a price tag that approaches MPLS. Redundant connections are whats needed.
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