What's the meaning of virtual POP ?

Tue Aug 23 22:46:21 UTC 2016

On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Yucong Sun <sunyucong at gmail.com> wrote:
> I came across the idea of the virtual POP  , but the website for them have
> way too much jargon to me[1][2][3], can someone explain it like i'm five
> (:-D)?

A virtual Point Of Presence means that you provide services at a
location via someone else's facilities.

The classic example was extending a PRI for dialup modems inside a
particular local calling area via a point-to-point T1 back to your
modem bank somewhere else that would have been a long distance call
for those customers. If you put a modem bank in their local calling
area, it's a POP. If you extend the circuit from their local calling
area back to your modem bank elsewhere, it's a virtual POP.

Modern examples of virtual POPs are much fancier but it's the same basic idea.

> 1. Is virtual POP basically a L2VPN?

It can be. Depends on what service you're extending from the "virtual" location.

> 2. Do such vPOP have guaranteed latency/bandwidth?

Depends on what you're extending and how.

> 3. Is that really useful?

It can be. It can let you dip your toes in a market without a large
up-front investment in equipment and backhaul.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>