What is MPLS ?

MPLS stands for Multi Protocol Label Switching. It is a protocol rather than a specific type of service. It can be used to deliver any type of circuit that a customer needs, from DSL to optical connectivity.

Making better use of available network paths and speed up your internet connection is one of the features of MPLS. It was formed by Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF. It has used the same current technology to make world wide web a better place. It is playing very important role in running big coperate business smoothly today. There were many previous technologies used such as frame relay and ATM sharing the same goal as MPLS, But they could not live up to the mark. MPLS has evolved itself keeping in mind the setbacks of ATM. Some of these technologies are already being replaced by MPLS. Although both MPLS and ATM provide a connection-orianted service for transporting data, the big difference is in the transport and encapsulation ways.

The best feature of MPLS is its ability to label data packets. In traditional IP networks, packets are routed based on the data's network-layer header. The arrival of each packet essentially forces a router to "decide" where it should go next with no regard for its actual content.

MPLS significantly speeds up the routing process by labeling each packet as it arrives on the network. Each network router stores information on how to handle different packet types, as indicated by their header label. This directly translates to higher efficiency by easing the load on an organization's routers and freeing up needed resources. Speed of packet transmissions are increased as the load on network infrastructure is reduced.

The inherent advantages of MPLS are most noticeable in situations where real-time traffic (voice, video) is configured to be given preference over data packets that do not require the same amount of speed or priority, such as email. In a traditional IP network, all traffic is treated equally. This becomes a critical problem when demand for bandwidth temporarily exceeds the capacity of the circuit and the router begins to discard packets. Emails receive the same network priority as a real-time video or audio conference and often the result is phone calls or video transmissions of inferior quality, as the two sources battle against one another for priority. On the other hand, an MPLS network assigns a high priority to real-time voice and video. E-mail traffic and other connections that are not as likely to be affected by latency will be pushed to the back of a router's queue to make way for high-priority traffic, as MPLS provides you with different Qualities of Service (QoS) across the network. This significantly improves the performance of real-time applications and has a imperceptible effect on lower priority traffic such as e-mail, where a delay in milliseconds is almost impossible to detect.

In a nutshell, MPLS will give your high-priority, mission critical IP traffic top priority to reach its destination with absolutely no interaction needed on your part and with no significant changes to your network infrastructure.

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