MPLS &Co

[David Gillett]

  It happens that I can suggest some answers to the second question, based
on my own situation.  Historically, we've had LANs at several locations
(because of business activity such as mergers, this continues to happen...),
each with their own connection to the Internet.  VPN technology provides a
simple/inexpensive way to begin securely linking these isolated LANs
together into a virtual company private network, WITHOUT venturing into new
(for us!) telecomm territory.
  If our only telecomm needs were email and Internet access, we'd be done at
that point.  Of course, they're not.  A few internal applications don't
tolerate network latencies very well -- and neither does voice traffic.  It
is the need for low-latency connections between our offices that is driving
us toward Frame Relay.
  But note:  Some recent advisories have suggested that encryption of FR
data traffic might be a wise precaution.  So the current thinking is that
while FR will enhance the *transport* of data traffic between our sites (in
addition to carrying voice traffic), we will continue to use VPN
implementations to encrypt that data traffic.  So VPN and FR wind up being
complementary rather than competitive; the choice of Internet versus FR
transport is pretty much orthogonal to the choice of data encryption or not.

  Our network is growing and changing, and many of our users are not in one
of our offices.  We will need to continue to support Internet VPN access for
these users even as offices are bought onto Frame Relay....

David Gillett
Enterprise Server Manager, Niku Corp.
(650) 701-2702

-----Original Message-----
From: VPN Mailing List [mailto:VPN at SECURITYFOCUS.COM]On Behalf Of Francoise
Beckers
Sent: January 25, 2000 07:27
To: VPN at SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Subject: MPLS &Co


Hi,
I've been working at Global One in Belgium for 3 months now and I'm trying
to learn about IVPN, but this isn't easy since I wasn't really familiar with
such technologies until now. This doesn't concern installation or
programming issues, but what I'm interested in, is:

- how does TAG switching, MPLS and everything related to this, work?

- Why would an enterprise choose to send his data over a VPN instead of e.g.
FR?
  What are the pro's and con's of IVPN in comparison with other
technologies?

All kinds of info would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Kind regards,
Françoise

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