The MPLS WG Archive

["David Kuder" <david.kuder@gobeam.com>]

senthil ayyasamy [mplsgeek@yahoo.com] on January 07, 2002 3:18 PM wrote:
> leave alone alll other tunneling methods, what is the exact
> prons and cons of IPsec and MPLS VPNs ...I feel like IPsec
> VPN have an edge over MPLS in that it provides more security
> and also no change to the core network.Also,i dont have to
> depend too much on the ISP for support....enlighten me more
> in this aspect 

I am the service provider so already that's different.

IPSec is not as well supported by our default vendor or so
the sales engineer claims.  You may get a different answer
from the same vendor.

IPSec requires many more TLAs (PKI, IKE, MD5, HMAC, ESP).  That's
not entirely a joke.  In terms of configuration and maintenance
there is a big chunk of infrastructure to deal with. 

IPSec does encrypt the payload.  That can be so important as to
make the rest of it part of the cost doing things.

For our application (VOIP), IPSec introduces too much overhead
in bandwidth and latency.

I'm not sure if MPLS is a big winner.  That's why I joined the
list, to learn.  Speaking of which, I see that Senthil cc-ed
mpls@uu.net.  What is the difference between it and mpls-ops?

Every one of the VPN options I've seen is applicable for someone
under some set of assumptions.