MPLS from a customer view

[thomuff]

Scenario: I have thirty locations with one data center and one dr site. Each location has two pvcs. One for the data center one for the DR site. Question: If we switch to a MPLS network. It would be transparent to the because the router at each location would be a CE router or non-LSR. The provider would handle all the MPLS configuration. I hope this make sense.

[mpugliese]

Yes, you are absolutely right.

When we deployed MPLS at our domain, nothing had to be done at the CPEs. No changes had to be done at the CPEs templates. To our customers it's transparent the way we do packet forwarding. They don't have any idea that we do label switch instead of layer 3 forwarding.

If you are moving to a MPLS-enabled carrier, you may contract a MPLS-enabled VPN service. With that you may have just one pvc at each site (if you need save some $$), or you may ask for a active & backup/standby pvc scheme. MPLS give to network administrator all flexibility to deploy any kind of connectivity request.

Yours Truly.

Murilo Pugliese.

[mpugliese]

Of course you may ask for load-balance between pvcs either.

[thomuff]

I found out the new network. CE Boston router A-1 768kb connects via primary circuit, and CE Boston router A-2 connects via XDSL as backup both connect to MPLS network. Data center would be 9MB and DR site would be 9MB. Repeat that for all thirty locations.

[thomuff]

to load balance, would we have to run EIGRP as our IGP.

[mpugliese]

From the Cisco perspective, to load-balance between PE & CE (or LSR and CPE), most of times there is not dynamic routing adjacency. If they (PE & CE) route between each other through static routes, you just need enable CEF and load-balance (per-packet or per-destination) at interface level.