MPLS-where to begin

[rahulawati]

Hello fellow network engineers, juz needed some advice. I juz completed my ccna this week. I am interested in learning about MPLS. is my ccna background sufficient to start learning mpls, or do i need to read some other books as well to understand mpls? and if i can go ahead and try reading mpls, which book do u suggest for a beginner like me keeping in mind that i have absolutely no experience with mpls prior to this..

[m.noktes]

Rahul,

I think there are bunch of mpls documents in cisco website. But to get start, you might begin with "mpls and vpn architectures" volumn I and II from cisco press. Once you have done this, still have many books to go through to focus on specific topics like mpls/vpn, mpls qos, L2 mpls, security mpls. mpls TE. You will get more clearly if you are working in ISP as well but that's not a big deal. I also see new book from cisco press "Selecting MPLS VPN Services" I think it is pretty good to understand how to see the mpls services from customer view. Another one that I would recommend to read is "MPLS-Enabled Applications : Emerging Developments and New Technologies". AFAIK, in ISP world, another big vendor in the mpls market that you might need to get the document to read is from Juniper as well.

HTH,

Monty

[Harold Ritter]

There is a wealth of MPLS documentation and white papers at the following URL:

www.cisco.com/go/mpls

Hope this helps,

[rahulawati]

Thanks guyzz for the resources... wat im uncertain about is if a person like me wid ccna background wld be able to digest concepts from this.. or do i hav to read thru books from ccnp level to get my basics clear??

[Harold Ritter]

I think it is important to have a good understanding of IP and IP routing in general before you undertake the study of MPLS since these two technologies are tightly coupled.

Hope this helps,

[ft]

Try this book.

I think it is a great book. :)

If you do every lab in this book, you will pass CCIE SP lab.

MPLS Configuration on Cisco IOS Software

By Lancy Lobo, - CCIE No. 4690, Umesh Lakshman

Publisher: Cisco Press

Pub Date: October 21, 2005

ISBN: 1-58705-199-0

Pages: 720

[jasrine47]

It is easy to learn MPLS if you are working with a service provider.

jasrine47

http://ciscorouterconfig.blogspot.com/

[m-geisler]

Hello rahulawati!

Before you start MPLS, you should know your IP, especially routing and BGP, because this two topics are essential for MPLS.

If you need more info concerning MPLS have a look at:

http://www.mplsrc.com/

Mike

[jlogginsni]

The best advice anyone could ever give you is.... "Start with the RFC on MPLS"