If you click this link, you most likely already have an idea, but for those that don't, keep on reading and you'll find out about a fairly new but proven technology that will drastically improve your company's WAN performance and efficiency.

Most companies market the technology as "IPVPN", this starts to give an indication of its purpose. With traditional VPN's the administration involved can be quite costly and time consuming, especially if you're a growing multisite company. 

When new offices are added to the VPN, every single end-point/office router needs to be updated with the new office details which can take days to implement and cause downtime for your business.

MPLS is a VPN managed on the ISP's network, and provides you with your very own network "cloud". This means we can add/remove/edit any site within the network without affecting any other site. MPLS uses "any-to-any" network connectivity, or for the technical bunch, a "mesh topology". Because the ISP is managing the VPN, your business network is hidden behind the enterprise security of the most security conscious companies in the world. MPLS security makes it impossible for network attacks or for any internet traffic to pass in to the cloud unless it is specifically authorized.

How can MPLS help my company?

I briefly touched on one major advantage on the previous page, administration, but there's a lot more to the technology.

As new offices open, and existing offices upgrade, or when you start to allow connections to partners or other sources, MPLS provides a scalable, resilient and cost effective way to maintain growth and new business ventures in an easy way. With access to the cloud, in turn allows access to your network securely. If restricted access is required, it's simple. If traffic priority is required for VoIP, video conferencing or bespoke applications, it's simple. Overall, it's a complex and agile technology which is simple to administer, yet provides a platform to mix, prioritise and secure all different types of media and network traffic.

MPLS provides a platform which allows us to play with the traffic, enabling us to guarantee speeds for applications whilst also making full use of the bandwidth when the line isn't under strain. Quality of Service (Qos) on MPLS networks can be carried across the network (end to end). So, even if two offices are using the bandwidth to the maximum capacity and a VoIP call is then established, the VoIP call would automatically have sufficient bandwidth allocated. The VoIP call would "take" the bandwidth away from non-mission critical traffic such as web browsing or emails. However, we can completely customise the policy to suit bespoke requirements.

MPLS is a closed off private network but can be provided over the public infrastructure (ADSL/VitaDSL/SDSL etc). To achieve the same goals traditionally, a dedicated, physical point to point leased line would be used, but even this wouldn't provide a resilient mesh topology. A single entry/exit to the network is also a major benefit, meaning the internet breakout can be administered using a single firewall device implementing the policy company wide. Remote users can also gain access to the cloud over public connectivity, a wi-fi hotspot, a client's network or 3G/GPRS data card and the same policies as internal users can be invoked.
MPLS really does provide a scalable, efficient and easy platform to ensure the most secure and contained network, yet enabling all forms of connectivity making it an extremely cost effective technology.