Equinix MPLS connectivity

Sat Oct 9 17:49:27 UTC 2010

On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 10:24:16AM -0400, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> why not just buy a wave on someone's dwdm system? (why mpls, I
> suppose, for what sounds like a ptp application)

The native wavelength for most longhaul DWDM systems is 10G, and not 
everybody needs to buy bandwidth in 10Gbps increments. Waves are also 
unprotected, and you're expected to buy multiple diverse paths and 
manage your own protection if you'd like the service to stay up. In this 
type of situation, where the customer doesn't have much economy of scale 
and needs to buy 2x10G of waves just to get 10G of protected bandwidth, 
MPLS transport can often be a cheaper, more reliable, and more flexible 
solution, even for point to point applications between major points on 
commodity routes.

In this particular scenario, if they need less than say 4-5 Gbps, need 
to be burstable, or are after specific latency and/or protection goals, 
MPLS would probably be a clear winner over waves. But note that I still 
have enough shame not to spam the list with pointers to the MPLS 
transport services my company offers. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
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