{"id":8005,"date":"2014-12-02T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aerocominc.com\/?p=8005"},"modified":"2017-05-31T14:50:10","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T21:50:10","slug":"mpls-networks-are-not-dead-i-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/mpls-networks-are-not-dead-i-think\/","title":{"rendered":"MPLS Networks Are Not Dead\u2026 I think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rp_MPLS-dead.png\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have had several IT Directors ask me if they think they still need their MPLS network<\/a><\/span> for their WAN.\u00a0 Their thought process is that:<\/p>\n

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  1. They have gone to hosted PBX<\/a><\/span> and are therefore, no longer sending voice over their network, which used to be one of the most popular reasons for an MPLS network.\u00a0 Side note \u2013 this person is brilliant!<\/li>\n
  2. Internet price erosion has allowed them to have huge fiber Internet connections<\/a><\/span> at each site, allowing for faster IPsec VPN transmission.<\/li>\n
  3. SD-WAN<\/a><\/span> is less expensive and a better solution.<\/li>\n
  4. They have moved everything to the cloud so the company\u2019s sites aren\u2019t sending much data back and forth.\u00a0 By the way \u2013 I like this IT Guy even more than #1!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Item #1<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Okay, the VoIP thing is a legitimate argument.<\/p>\n

    Item #2<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Yes, this is somewhat true but what about bottlenecks from VPN encryption and decryption?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t you sending more data across your network than ever?\u00a0 I\u2019m not a network engineer, but has VPN equipment gotten a ton faster and much better at not taking longer to process large amounts of data going back and forth between sites?\u00a0 If so, then alrighty, I\u2019m dead wrong.\u00a0 If not, then yes, you will still need an MPLS network in order to allow that data to flow like water!<\/p>\n

    Item #3<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Absolutely! SD-WAN is a great technology that in some ways, diminishes the need for MPLS. But remember that in order for packets to get to your SD-WAN network, they still have to traverse the public Internet… and you cannot guarantee latency, packet loss or jitter on the public Internet. Therefore, if your company has one or several critical, real-time applications (such as Voice, Video or Remote Desktop), running on the WAN, you may still want MPLS (in addition to SD-WAN). This way, your real-time traffic will still have guaranteed performance at all times.<\/p>\n

    Item #4<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    My beloved #4, (assuming your sites are sending large amounts of data), wouldn\u2019t you still need VPN\u2019s to send the data back & forth to the 3rd<\/sup> party, from each site?\u00a0 \u2026and wouldn\u2019t that 3rd<\/sup> party still have the same encryption and decryption bottleneck problem?\u00a0 If so, we now get to the thing I\u2019ve been thinking for the last couple years\u2026<\/p>\n

    As the medium size organizations begin to adopt hybrid cloud environments, you will need to either have an MPLS circuit installed at your 3rd<\/sup> party cloud provider\u2019s data center or your company will have to choose a 3rd<\/sup> party cloud provider that can also be your MPLS provider, so that your cloud servers are already sitting on the network and can simply stream through your existing MPLS network.<\/p>\n

    The second scenario is the reason why so many of the large telecom carriers are scrambling to add cloud applications to their product set.\u00a0 They want to own the cloud application AND the pipe controlling the quality of transmission.\u00a0 That\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing for the client and it would mean no finger pointing.<\/p>\n

    To all of you Network Engineers, Network Architects, IT Directors and Systems Admins\u2026 are VPN\u2019s faster?<\/strong>\u00a0 Am I wrong or am I right?<\/p>\n

    Need an AeroCom expert to quickly find the top 3 MPLS providers for your company’s size, locations and requirements? Click below.<\/p>\n