businessinfomag.uk
magazine
30
MPLS
A key challenge for IT departments
working with interconnected sites is
providing reliable, secure and easy to
manage connectivity between sites
and into big cloud services providers
such as AmazonWeb Services, Office
365 and Microsoft Azure.
To meet their needs, Spitfire is
promoting MPLS as an efficient and
secure method of routing data on a
private network protected from the
Internet. It works by assigning a label to
each data packet, which is then used to
move data packets from network node
to network node.
Spitfire MPLS is compatible with a
wide variety of circuits, including Fibre,
EFM and GEA Ethernet, SDSL M, Annex
M, VDSL & ADSL2+, so each site can use
the circuit that suits its needs.
Historically, MPLS solutions have been
seen as expensive, complex and better
suited to large enterprises. Spitfire wants
to dispel these ‘myths’, claiming that
MPLS is ideal for any size of business
Spitfire targets multi-site
businesses with MPLS offering
that wants to share data and/or voice
connectivity across two or more offices.
Scalable and secure
To link sites, standardWANs (Wide Area
Networks) use point-to-point circuits,
requiring every site to be connected to
the other, and/or VPNs (Virtual Private
Networks). The main disadvantage
with these options is that as you add
sites, complexity increases, making this
is a more costly option, especially for
geographically distant sites.
They also require local router
configuration and encryption to ensure
secure data transmission over the
internet, which can be expensive and
complicated.
MPLS is a simpler way of creating
aWide Area Network. A single link
connects each location to the service
provider’s network, which means it’s
much easier to add new sites, connect
to customer data centres, access
Spitfire's hosted telephone systems and
gain secure access to the cloud.
New sites can be added or removed
without having to re-configure theWAN
as a whole and without the time and
expense of sending out an engineer to
configure every router so that the new
site can talk to existing sites.
Because all sites connect to the
MPLS and internet independently, they
aren't reliant on the other sites, as they
are in traditional point-to-point circuits.
Spitfire’s MPLS solution is built
around its resilient core network,
bringing security and flexibility. A fully
redundant multi-10 Gigabit Ethernet
fibre ring connects its core network
nodes, backed with industry leading
service level agreements (SLAs) for
assured performance levels and peace
of mind that your business will stay
connected.
Spitfire also operates a dual vendor
equipment strategy, ensuring that a
vendor-specific software issue will not
bring down the entire network.
Quality guaranteed
MPLS is privately connected to your
LAN. Since it’s a private network, it
doesn't suffer the same quality and
security issues as a solution that uses
the public internet, such as IPsec VPN.
By using dedicated voice circuits or
converged voice and data circuits with
Quality of Service (QoS) enabled, voice
quality can be assured between all MPLS
sites.
Having unreliable call quality could
be detrimental to your business, but
with MPLS you will experience low
levels of latency, packet loss and jitter.
For this reason, it’s ideal for businesses
running real-time applications, such as
voice and video.
In summary, MPLS lets businesses
link multiple sites into a voice and
data network without the expense
of dedicated leased lines or the
unreliability of IPsec VPNs. Spitfire takes
a simple approach to MPLS, providing
a centrally managed solution that can
grow with your business.
Internet telephony service provider and ISP Spitfire has been promoting the
benefits of MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) for business. In a presentation
at IP Expo, Andy Duncan, Spitfire’s IT Interface Manager, compared the options
available to multi-site businesses and explained why MPLS is a strong contender
for streamlined communications between offices.
Because all
sites connect
to the MPLS
and internet
independently,
they aren’t
reliant on the
other sites,
as they are in
traditional point-
to-point circuits
