Is MPLS A Dying Technology?
The market is changing. What is useful today may not be useful tomorrow.
No matter what problem a technology may currently solve, most of it is doomed to fade and die out. Either that or a technical engineer will develop a bigger and better version of it.
Yesterday’s Internet Routing Community
Multiprotocol Label Switching, otherwise known as MPLS, is widely known for its high-performance data carrying capability within the telecommunication industry. Relying on short path labels, MPLS is a standard protocol technique that the telecom folks use for speeding up and shaping network traffic flows. Because of its usefulness, it has been widely adopted by high-quality managed wide area networks (WANs).
As a result, equipment suppliers can sell routers to enterprise businesses as well as service providers who build a virtual private network (VPNs) based on the connections MPLS offers.
But like all good things, endings are inevitable.
Though MPLS has been a reliable technology, it’s only a reliable technology if your information isn’t being accessed remotely or through the cloud. And attempting to access a network from a remote region adds significant cost to a company’s IT budget and resources.
Tomorrow’s Internet Routing Community
Traffic patterns are changing. From cloud services to dwindling corporate data centers, network users are retrieving their data from everywhere. They need it and your business needs it. So, how do you go about getting it?
As an MPLS alternative, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) has taken center stage. Compared to the traditional leased-line or MPLS circuits and because of its dynamic architecture, SD-WAN can meet many of the enterprise WAN requirements at a lower cost. SD-WAN is also easier to manage, cost and adaptable for today’s high-bandwidth applications.
There are two types of SD-WAN – public and private. Both versions employ multiple connection types that rely on MPLS, carrier Ethernet, and a network to traverse your data through. The difference between the two, however, depends on what network layer they rely on. Public lines over the Internet, transport data through tier 3 networks. Meaning, all of your business-critical data is vulnerable to security breaches. Whereas with the private option, your data is secured through individual layer two connections. Though both SD-WAN versions are useful, companies seeking to gain an added layer of protection to their data, are better suited for the tier 2 option. Especially considering all of the data breaches that have been reported by WikiLeaks news recently.
To learn how you can adapt to the market changes through a private network connection, click here.
