The MPLS WG Archive

[Ajay Simha <asimha@cisco.com>]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Shannon Lake wrote:

>SL:Ladies and Gentlemen:
>SL:
>SL:
>SL:
>SL:I have been doing some research looking for the economic justification
>SL:for MPLS?  Does anyone have a paper, website, etc that explains why
>SL:carriers would implement MPLS (other than technical)?
>SL:I understand its technical merits, but I am really interested in its
>SL:economic and/or other rationale for MPLS.

Hi Shannon,

Let me begin by saying that MPLS is one of the ways of having a common core
for a SP to provide various types of services (Folks on this mailing list may
have other ideas/opinions as well).

The following services/applications may be enabled by MPLS:

- MPLS Forwarding(LDP based Core): Integration of IP+ATM, Enables L2/L3 VPNs,
  Transparent QoS. This allows for a SP to restrict growth of legacy L2
  transport service. For example stop buying/deploying more Frame Relay
  Switches. However, there are customers who may want FR service at a POP
  where this SP does not have FR reachability. In such cases the SP may choose
  to do something like FRoMPLS to bring this customers into the FR network

- MPLS TE: If a service provider can deploy MPLS-TE to squeeze more bandwidth
  out of their network, they may able to postpone buying expensive highspeed
  links for a while. Avoiding OC48/OC192 links for even 6 months could add up

- L3 VPNs: traditionally if customer wanted their remote offices (Banks for
  example) to be interconnected, they would be say Frame or ATM services and
  either manage their WAN routing themselves, buy managed services from the SP
  OR outsource WAN routing. With MPLS L3 VPNs they can do simple routing
 (RIPv2/Static) and interconnect their offices and avoid this overhead.

- L2/L3 VPNs: The savings from having a common core for various services get
  passed on to the customers. If they SP had to have dedicated circuits for
  these customers it obviously costs more money.

These are some of the points that I could come up with. Not everyone applies
in all situations...

Regards,

-ajay



>SL:
>SL:
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>SL:Thanks in advance,
>SL:
>SL:
>SL:
>SL:Shannon M. Lake Sr.
>SL:
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>SL: