MPLS in the campus Network?

Thu Oct 20 16:17:59 UTC 2016

On 20/Oct/16 15:43, steven brock wrote:

>
> If you had to make such a choice recently, did you choose an MPLS design
> even at lower speed ?
> How would you convince your management that MPLS is the best solution for
> your campus network ? How would you justify the cost or speed difference ?

IP/MPLS would be my recommendation.

From an operational perspective, running it in your Core and Access
backbone removes any need for STP (and all the associated headache).

Not sure what gear you're using now, but you'll get full routing and
MPLS features on the platforms such as the Cisco ASR920. I'd have
recommended the Cisco ME3600X, but they just announced EoS/EoL last
night, which means that while you can still order it until October 2017,
the ASR920 will be cheaper and is the future of of Metro-E from Cisco in
this segment.

Brocade's CES 2000 platform would also be a good choice here.

Juniper ACX5000 presents some challenges re: the use of that Broadcom
chip, although I know a number of operators that have had the courage to
deploy it for this use-case.

Ultimately, whatever vendor you choose, the guaranteed way to not get
that 3AM call is to run IP/MPLS for your Core and Access backbones,
especially looking at how much Layer 2 traffic you're hauling around.

Mark.