Subject: market?

From: "Francoise Beckers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 12:59:28 +0200

Hi,
I don't know if this list is the right one to send this question to, but
I'll give it a shot anyway...
I know that MPLS-based IP-VPN's can solve the "n-square" problem, which
means that, if you have e.g. a VPN on Frame Relay in which you need a
full mesh, you could encounter provisioning problems.

Because of that, I'd think that MPLS-based IP-VPN's are well suited for
very large enterprises. But, a couple of days ago, I was talking to a
collegue, who told me that MPLS was specifically designed for the small-
& medium-sized enterprises...
Can anybody clarify me on this please?

Thank you,
Françoise

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From: Wushao Wen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 08:24:18 -0700 (PDT)

Hi,
  I don't think your concern is really a problem at all. As I know, the
MPLS does not target for small & medium sized enterprise. The motivations
for MPLS include two important considerations: traffice engineering and
VPN. Of course it also provide advantages such as simple and single
forwarding mechanism (all packet forwarding bases only on the label
switching in the MPLS domain). Since the MPLS elementates the
necessary to create a site-to-site virtual connection in VPN (Which means 
full-meshed network is required for a VPN), allows label
merging, the MPLS network should have very good scalarbility.
  I also want to mention that MPLS can also be used in the backbone
network.
  Thanks!

Wushao

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From: Jeremy Lawrence <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 13:09:01 +1100

>& medium-sized enterprises...

That's largely wrong. MPLS, as it is sold today, is targetted at
service providers and very large enterprises. 

(When service providers sell MPLS-based VPN services, those services
might be targetted at small & medium enterprises.)

Jeremy Lawrence