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MPLS vs IPsec
The most common reason for switching to MPLS is to simplify your network. Most IPSEC based networks consist of a main site, backup main site, and multiple remote sites requiring extensive design, planning and rollout. Network design can soak up considerable resources. Equipment needs to be purchased, routing tables need to be populated, security policies configured, cryptographic algorithms decided, and so on. Even after that phase is complete, you still need to test and troubleshoot.
M P L S does away with all of those headaches. You don’t need to purchase any equipment and you don’t need to understand security because there’s nothing to secure. MPLS is a simple private network as straightforward as if you were connecting your sites “point to point”. You connect your main, backup and remote sites to the M P L S network and you’re done - definitely the key benefit of MPLS.
While MPLS is simple to configure, and can reduce your rollout, there is, or prior to Summer 2007 there used to be, a drawback: MPLS alone does not give your sites access to the Internet. Because MPLS puts your network on a private WAN, Internet connection used to be an entirely separate process. Before we devised the MPLS Connect Protocol, the solution used to require you to first determine how much bandwidth you need to support all of your sites, then buy and position that bandwidth at the main site (and backup site if needed). Your remote sites then sent packets through the M P L S backbone to the main site continuing on out to the Internet through that main site Internet connection. On the plus side, only one firewall is needed for the entire network and that is positioned at the main site, avoiding the need to install one at each remote site. Another small advantage is that Internet usage for the entire network is now monitored and managed at only one site, again, the main one, or headquarters.
While you have just solved your site-to-site connectivity issues and your Internet access, you now have another potential headache - all sites are now accessing the Internet over the same pipe as your private site-to-site traffic. This is only an issue if someone at a remote site downloads a huge MP3 file and at the same time, your CEO is downloading his latest sales forecast report from that same branch office. Whoops. So M P L S definitely has a double edge to it when you find yourself sharing the same pipe for Internet and site-to-site critical data transfers.
Weighing The Options
So what’s the solution? There are multiple. You can run data compression before it hits the MPLS network, or store local copies and wait to replicate at night. You can increase your bandwidth to the M P L S network, or apply Quality of Service (QoS) to the packets.
If you have voice and video traffic flowing over your MPLS network, that can add another wrinkle. You need to start allocating bandwidth and reserving, differentiating and prioritizing your traffic. Voice is first, video is second, site-to-site is third, Internet is last. That means you “mark packets” at your core switch or edge routers. Suddenly MPLS doesn’t seem so simple once you factor in data classification and QoS. But it still beats having to purchase $5k per site for a fancy firewall doing IPsec. The key is to use some of the savings to invest in careful design and planning from a QoS expert.
M P L S does away with all of those headaches. You don’t need to purchase any equipment and you don’t need to understand security because there’s nothing to secure. MPLS is a simple private network as straightforward as if you were connecting your sites “point to point”. You connect your main, backup and remote sites to the M P L S network and you’re done - definitely the key benefit of MPLS.
While MPLS is simple to configure, and can reduce your rollout, there is, or prior to Summer 2007 there used to be, a drawback: MPLS alone does not give your sites access to the Internet. Because MPLS puts your network on a private WAN, Internet connection used to be an entirely separate process. Before we devised the MPLS Connect Protocol, the solution used to require you to first determine how much bandwidth you need to support all of your sites, then buy and position that bandwidth at the main site (and backup site if needed). Your remote sites then sent packets through the M P L S backbone to the main site continuing on out to the Internet through that main site Internet connection. On the plus side, only one firewall is needed for the entire network and that is positioned at the main site, avoiding the need to install one at each remote site. Another small advantage is that Internet usage for the entire network is now monitored and managed at only one site, again, the main one, or headquarters.
While you have just solved your site-to-site connectivity issues and your Internet access, you now have another potential headache - all sites are now accessing the Internet over the same pipe as your private site-to-site traffic. This is only an issue if someone at a remote site downloads a huge MP3 file and at the same time, your CEO is downloading his latest sales forecast report from that same branch office. Whoops. So M P L S definitely has a double edge to it when you find yourself sharing the same pipe for Internet and site-to-site critical data transfers.
Weighing The Options
So what’s the solution? There are multiple. You can run data compression before it hits the MPLS network, or store local copies and wait to replicate at night. You can increase your bandwidth to the M P L S network, or apply Quality of Service (QoS) to the packets.
If you have voice and video traffic flowing over your MPLS network, that can add another wrinkle. You need to start allocating bandwidth and reserving, differentiating and prioritizing your traffic. Voice is first, video is second, site-to-site is third, Internet is last. That means you “mark packets” at your core switch or edge routers. Suddenly MPLS doesn’t seem so simple once you factor in data classification and QoS. But it still beats having to purchase $5k per site for a fancy firewall doing IPsec. The key is to use some of the savings to invest in careful design and planning from a QoS expert.