Is this what MPLS does?

[xenolith]

Hello. I work for a regional ISP/CLEC which is getting more involved in building private WANs for customers. Currently this basically means dropping in a dedicated router for their traffic and ordering circuits for it. We are looking into upgrading our core routers which brings me to my question.

Does a feature exist which would basically allow me to use my existing infastructure and create a virtual router with something like interface tagging for the private WAN links? In my short readings about MPLS, it sounds like it may offer me this capability.

Thanks,
Josh

 

[ADB100]

Multi Protocol Label Switching

 

[ADB100]

Sorry for that posting, my mind was elsewhere whilst posting....

Anyway regarding your question on MPLS - yes it sounds like you have understood it correctly. Many service providers offer MPLS and to the customer it is effectively a WAN service similar to a managed Frame Relay service. You simply use your core IP routing infrastructure to route the customers packets. Between your network and the customers you must install PE routers (the Provider Edge Router) this 'knows' each of the customer connections and associates a 'Label' with them. Once the packet leaves the router it is sent to the remote PE router and then forwarded onto the remote customers network.

It is probably a bad explanation but if you take a look on CCO there is a lot of documentation there with working examples.

Good luck

Andy

 

[xenolith]

Thanks for your answer on this. I thought I was on the right track, but wanted to find out before I spent much time researching it.