As your business expands across multiple locations, a critical question emerges – how do you connect them seamlessly? The growth of your workforce, customer base, and sales rely on a network that ties all of your offices and data together, which is where Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) comes in.
MPLS has emerged as the preferred networking solution for connecting distributed business locations and branch offices where traffic between sites is mission-critical. This technology optimizes and streamlines data routing over long distances, so you can concentrate on business growth rather than complex networking. But with so many MPLS solutions available today, determining the right choice for your organization can be challenging.
In this blog, we’ll explain how MPLS works and its benefits to help you find a best-fit solution for your networking needs.
What Is MPLS?
MPLS directs data across large telecommunications and data networks. MPLS helps connect geographically dispersed offices by establishing predetermined paths for internet traffic flow called label-switched paths (LSPs).
Instead of making decisions about where to send packet data at each router, as in traditional Internet Protocol (IP) networks, MPLS adds short labels that dictate forwarding decisions. Routers use these fixed-length labels, rather than long network addresses, to route traffic along LSPs. This avoids complex routing table lookups and speeds up IP packet transfer across the network.
What Is MPLS Used For?
MPLS is a highly effective WAN infrastructure for enterprise businesses to connect distributed work environments. Since MPLS networks establish virtual links between headquarters, regional offices, data centers, and cloud platforms across global distances, they enable seamless accessibility and a unified working experience for employees across sites.
MPLS also alleviates network congestion by streamlining routing decisions for IP packets to provide reliable high-speed connectivity. Traffic engineering capabilities allow IT teams to configure the network for usage needs, such as prioritizing essential real-time video collaboration tools for optimal performance. MPLS routing adapts dynamically, maximizing bandwidth availability.
But while MPLS connects multiple remote branch offices with quality assurance, this technology isn’t without challenges. MPLS can be expensive, difficult to deliver globally, and inflexible, often leading to vendor lock-ins. Plus, as more businesses move workloads to the cloud, traditional MPLS models may not offer the bandwidth and speeds cloud-based services require for optimal performance.
Working with an experienced technology advisor to determine if MPLS is the best fit for your networking needs – and find a solution that works for your business – is essential for getting the most value from your network.
How Does MPLS Work?
MPLS technologies function on the concept of labels and label switching. Here’s a high-level overview:
- When a packet enters the MPLS network, the ingress router gives it a label.
- Instead of analyzing the network layer header, subsequent MPLS routers use this local label to make forwarding decisions.
- Each MPLS router along the LSP replaces the label and sends it to the next router.
- The egress router removes the final MPLS label, revealing the original packet for normal IP forwarding.
Routers define LSPs for source-destination pairs, creating virtual links across the physical network. Advanced MPLS capabilities like traffic engineering optimize paths based on bandwidth, latency, and application priorities.
Components of an MPLS Network
MPLS networks consist of specialized routing components that work together to enable efficient packet forwarding based on labels instead of traditional destination-based routing.
Label Switch Routers
Label switch routers (LSRs) are the specialized routers that enable MPLS functionality. These core routers are comprised of:
- Routing protocols like OSPF, IS-IS, and BGP, which share network topology information
- A Forwarding Information Base (FIB) containing label forwarding entries
- Complex routing tables, including an NHLFE table, to map labels to the next hops
LSRs must perform label assignment, label swapping to replace incoming labels, and label disposition to remove labels from exiting traffic.
Ingress Router
This component is the entry point into the MPLS network. Its essential functions include:
- Classifying incoming data packets and assigning them to a Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC)
- Pushing an MPLS header with a label onto an IP packet
- Routing the packet to the next hop in the label-switched path based on label lookup
Ingress routing is critical because the label determines the packet’s path and priority across the MPLS backbone.
Egress Router
The egress router is the exit point from an MPLS network. This component works by:
- Stripping off the MPLS label header as IP packets leave the MPLS backbone
- Using the original packet’s network layer header to make a forwarding decision
- Routing MPLS packets toward the final destination IP address
Egress routers enable the integration of the MPLS backbone with standard IP routing behavior outside the domain.
Forwarding Paths
Label-switched paths (LSPs) are the end-to-end MPLS tunnels for specific traffic flows. LSPs use forwarding and transit routers to define paths for packets to reach network addresses. Advanced MPLS capabilities build on these fundamental components to enable traffic engineering, virtual private networks (VPNs), and other flexible networking.
How Does MPLS Benefit Businesses?
MPLS has established itself as the standard for connecting corporate point-to-point locations where network traffic between regional offices, data centers, and more is mission-critical to business success. An effective MPLS network offers benefits such as:
Higher Network Performance
One of the biggest drivers for adopting MPLS services is the need to improve network performance. By streamlining IP routing inside the network through fixed-label paths, MPLS offers reduced network congestion, faster speeds, and lower latency to optimize the user experience when accessing business applications.
Efficient Multi-Site Connectivity
MPLS connects distributed offices and infrastructure across metro or global distances. Standard IP VPN tunnels isolate traffic between sites, enabling seamless data and workspace sharing between locations for more efficient operations.
Improved Team Productivity
Quality connectivity can keep your employees productive by ensuring access to applications and collaboration tools with speed and reliability. Prioritizing business-critical network traffic like voice and video prevents lag and friction.
Stronger Customer Experiences
Fast network performance allows support teams to deliver responsive services and support to external customers. By improving connectivity overall, MPLS also minimizes page load delays and application errors that can frustrate users accessing your services online.
Enhanced Security
MPLS connections keep your company’s sensitive information safe across network links. They enable encrypted site-to-site VPN connectivity and hide forwarding paths through labels to prevent bad actors from accessing your data.
Simplified Scalability
The flexible architecture of MPLS simplifies network growth to accommodate regional expansion as your organization grows, enabling IT teams to add new sites by defining label-switched paths to newly integrated locations.
Better Traffic Management
MPLS offers advanced traffic engineering capabilities for insightful handling of data flows. The network analyzes usage trends to efficiently route different application traffic types based on business priority for maximum resource utilization.
MPLS vs. SD-WAN: Compared
While MPLS uses intermediary routers to speed routing decisions, SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Networking) moves intelligence to the network edge.
Many modern businesses are reaping the benefits of both technologies by overlaying SD-WAN on top of an MPLS network. This hybrid solution enables MPLS to provide reliable transport and traffic isolation, while SD-WAN enables cost savings, flexibility through multiple transports, and centralized orchestration.
MPLS Explained: Find the Right Fit for Your Business With CommQuotes
MPLS offers multi-location businesses more agility through fast, reliable network connectivity. But with so many networking options available today, choosing the right MPLS solution to meet your organization’s unique needs can be challenging.
Luckily, working with a trusted technology advisor like CommQuotes can help. For over a decade, we’ve helped businesses navigate the crowded technology landscape to find best-fit IT solutions with agnostic advice and true advocacy. We’ll leverage our longstanding relationships with top MPLS providers to ensure you get the networking solutions that best fit your business – with the best pricing and client experience possible.
To learn more about how CommQuotes can help you find the right MPLS or private WAN solutions, reach out to our experts today.
