Benefits over MPLS network compared to IP network

[gayan_nkgsa]

What are the benefits over MPLS network compared to IP network?

[Leo Laohoo]

https://gprivate.com/6g4no

[M02@rt37]

Hello @gayan_nkgsa 

Traditional ip networks use destination-based forwarding, which can lead to inefficient routing as traffic follows the shortest path rather than the most optimal one. They lack traffic engineering, making it difficult to manage congestion and utilize alternative paths effectively. Additionally, QoS is limited, meaning latency-sensitive applications like VoIP and video may suffer from jitter and delays.

Unlike MPLS, which offers better control, reliability, and performance, IP networks struggle with scalability and efficiency making them less ideal for demanding enterprise needs.

[Blue_Bird]

Hello @gayan_nkgsa 

With Traditional Network, Devices makes forwarding discissions based on the destination ip address. If you take an example of large ISP network, which provides transit communication between customer sites, they should configure bgp as routing protocol and each router must maintain complete / Huge routing tables [>800000 routes]. Still forwarding decisions are happening using traditional Destination ip address. Which is not efficient and impacts the network performance.

Multiprotocol Label Switching is a packet forwarding method that uses labels to make forwarding decisions instead of the Layer 3
destination of the packet. MPLS decreases forwarding overhead on core routers making them more efficient. MPLS can also forward other L3 protocols besides IPv4, MPLS also supports multiple services such as unicast routing, multicast routing, VPNs, TE (Traffic Engineering), QoS, and AToM (Any Transport over MPLS) . Therefore, MPLS is very efficient and flexible.

Best regards
******* If This Helps, Please Rate ********

[Ramblin Tech]

In order to build an MPLS network, you must first build an IP infrastructure, as IP provides the control plane to distribute labels. If you have to have an IP network anyway, why add MPLS to it? Two reasons: (1) traffic engineering and (2) virtualization. An MPLS network can be engineered to pin label switched paths to particular nodes and force specified classes of traffic to take the pre-determined routes, while an MPLS transport underlay network can be virtualized via overlay networks such as L2VPNs and L3VPNs.

The tradeoff for the MPLS-enabled capabilities of TE and virtualization is increased complexity and overhead over an IP-only network. If you do not need TE or virtualization, do you need MPLS now? Probably not and there are even IP-only means of traffic-steering and virtualization. That said, it is certainly prudent to consider network components that are MPLS (or Segment Routing) capable, as it can always be implemented later if the need arises.

[gayan_nkgsa]

Hi,

What about security? Do we have more security over MPLS network? For example if we take a packet capture over MPLS interface can we decode it like in IP interface?

[Ramblin Tech]

Unless you have complete physical control of the entirety of your transport infrastructure, you must assume that a determined bad-actor can capture any packet on the wire for analysis, regardless of the encapsulation type. Network transport security comes from strong crypto (and sound management of the crypto keys). There is no inherent security advantage between IP-over-Ethernet and IP-over-MPLS-over-Ethernet with regard to privacy (encrypting the payload) or authentication (signing the payload). [Network apps are still talking to each other over IP sockets, whether there is any MPLS transport or not.]