MPLS was developed in 1997 by the MPLS Working Group of the IETF, which was a collaboration of vendors with this independent body. At a recent panel meeting, they discussed the seven reasons MPLS has been such a success:
- MPLS embraced IP as a way to make circuit-oriented ATM run over IP.
- MPLS is flexible: The control plane and data plane are separate. MPLS supports a label stack of various sizes and it handles unicast forwarding.
- MPLS is protocol neutral: it works with ATM, Frame Relay, Sonet or Ethernet at the core. It now supports video, cell phone networks and Metro-Ethernet.
- It required only two new protocols: Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) and Link Management Protocol (LMP)
- It is adaptable, evolving to support new applications and services.
- MPLS supports metrics, allowing easy measurement of traffic volume and latency between hubs, metros and regions to help manage traffic.
- MPLS is scalable
To read the entire article, written by Carolyn Duffy Marsan, visit: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/032709-mpls-turns-12.html
