Using specific techniques in your telecom networks provides several benefits to your company. Multiprotocol Label Switching, or MPLS, is a routing technique that can direct data from one node to the next. It is based on short paths rather than long network addresses, which can help avoid complex lookups in a routing table and speed up traffic flow. It would be wise to look at MPLS as a technique than a service. It establishes pre-determined, highly efficient routes.
How does it work?
Each router in the network has a table that indicates how to handle the packets of a specific FEC type of forwarding error correction. Once that packet has entered the network, the routers no longer need to perform header analysis. Instead, subsequent routers use the label as an index into a table that provides them with a new FEC for that packet, allowing the MPLS network to handle packages with specific characteristics consistently. For example, packets carrying real-time traffic, such as voice or video, can easily be mapped to low-latency routes across the network. This is something that is often challenging with conventional routing. Understanding that these labels provide ways to attach additional information to each packet at a higher rate than the previous routers already had is essential.
What are the benefits of MPLS?
While MPLS can offer several benefits to your company – scalability, performance, better bandwidth utilization, and an overall better end-user experience – a few key points to hit on will help show why this might be the proper route for your company.
Are you looking for more flexibility? MPLS allows for inter-connectivity growth of your network with minimal addition of hardware. While point-to-point connectivity requires an interface connection from the router to be on both ends of the connection, you can add new fully-meshed technology with remote connections to remove the additional hardware from your primary sites. Using existing hardware, applications, and technologies, you will see that it gives your company a seamless, worry-free integration that is ideally suited for delivering cloud applications. This will ultimately allow your company to lower costs and add growth.
The benefits are not restricted to scalability. MLPS can improve bandwidth utilization by allowing multiple traffic types to cross the network. Your company will prioritize network traffic and manage bandwidth based on usage and company needs. It will reduce network congestion by taking advantage of optional paths for traffic to avoid congestion. Using alternative network paths will improve uptime. MPLS also has customized management levels.
Now that you know what kind of benefits your company can receive from MPLS, you can see below an overview list of details regarding the services.
- True global reach
- Interfaces ranging from T-1 to Gigabit Ethernet (including MLPPP) in the event of an outage
- A broad range of Ethernet options, with incremental bandwidth options from 3Mbps to 1GB
- Six classes of service (CoS) for optimal traffic prioritization.
- Single, flat rate for CoS with no bandwidth or traffic mix restrictions
- Around-the-clock “Customer First” service
MPLS is a technique that will help to continue your company’s success by incorporating flexibility and easy scalability, allowing you to utilize your bandwidth better, and making sure that all the while, it is focusing on extraordinary customer service.