frame vs. mpls 4

[itrack]

Hello,

I'm currently using a lot of frame relays throughout U.S. to move continuously sent, sensitive information; security and reliability are very important.

I've been told that MPLS is a cheaper and better way to go than frame relay.

Sorry if you've already answered this, but I'd like to get some expert advice on next steps, risks of switching from frame, and advantages MPLS.

Thanks

 

[robertjo24]

I would be interested to know who is telling you that MPLS is cheaper.
We run a frame network in a star configuration, with many remote sites in remote locations. We realized the many-to-many benifits of MPLS did not apply. Also, as many of our remotes are located in rural, remote locations, local loop issues become a problem. We found it would be more expensive without any benifits.

I would have your primary carrier do a cost benifits analysis for you on your current network, then ask them to do a project growth cost over the next five years.

It is easy for a salesman to say it will be cheaper, but I would have them put it on papaer.

 

[KiscoKid]

To be honest, most of the benefits of MPLS apply to the service providers (SP) but typically people cite the following reasons as to why MPLS is a good choice:

1. Enhanced traffic engineering. MPLS can offer the same QoS guarantees as ATM. In fact, MPLS merges the majority of benefits of both IP and ATM networks.

2. SP's can provide each customer with their own secure VPN at little or no cost as it builds on existing infrastructure.

3. MPLS is completely standardised which hopefully means you hopefully won't need to replace existing WAN equipment.

4. You can pretty much to away with expensive leased lines to interconnect each office to say the head office. If the SP has decent coverage, all you need is a local (therefore cheaper) link to the SP's edge router.

 

[plshlpme]

we have just migrated a customer over from a point to point network to a MPLS network.

being a global customer with sites in all countries of the world the new fully mesh setup is night and day better then the old point to point.

as a service provider it is also night and day easier to support...

it is the future.. where i work they will not issue any more frame relay connections.. IP VPN is being pushed hard.

 

[Belushi]

Funny that people are comparing frame and MPLS here. Most people don't realize that generally customer access into the MPLS cloud is via frame/ATM. In addition when the traffic gets tot he MPLS cloud it is no longer layaer 2 but layer 3 via IP.

I personally prefer MPLS because my applications running on my network (VoIP, ERP, etc.) run much better over MPLS. We need the priority queues offered by MPLS that are not around with Frame/ATm. Plus the pseudo fully meshed topology is necessary for us.

And yes, in our instance, MPLS was cheaper than traditional frame. This of course will change from customer to customer based on several variables (number of sites, service level gurantees, etc.)

 

[plshlpme]

its not really fair to compare a local loop frame circuit to what they would have had before in a national frame-relay network.
Telcos are now deploying Frame over MPLS for the stubborn customers who don't want to give up their frame-relay.

The MPLS is transparent to the end user.

Funny that people are comparing frame and MPLS here. Most people don't realize that generally customer access into the MPLS cloud is via frame/ATM. In addition when the traffic gets tot he MPLS cloud it is no longer layaer 2 but layer 3 via IP.