MPLS, Wide Area Ethernet, and VPLS Panel Discussion

TYLER SMITH, TELARUS VP OF ENGINEERING HOST AN MPLS/WAE DISCUSSION.
PANEL MEMBERS INCLUDE:

  • Rich Prohaska: Sales engineer Level 3
  • Lee Berk: Sales Engineering at Comcast
  • Tony Lucero: Lead Sales Engineer at CenturyLink

 

QUESTIONS POSED TO PANEL MEMBERS INCLUDE:

  1. Question for Rich: What are the differences between Level 3 Network which is more traditional MPLS environment versus a layer 2 offering that a lot of folks bring to the table?
  2. Question for Lee: Some think of Comcast as more of a regional player, and being able to provide network services in their territory, but how does a nationwide need come to play and how does Comcast service folks that are out of your traditional footprint?
  3. Question for Tony: For customers wanting to increase their bandwidth, what they have today is maybe an MPLS network that is maybe T1 based and is gobbling up all that bandwidth with 10 individuals sharing that T1.  How have you seen bandwidth requirements change and what is CenturyLink doing to address those needs?
  4. Question for Rich: As it relates to the difference from MPLS and VPLS.  VPLS isn’t a widely adopted technology.  Why would a customer want to use VPLS?
  5. Question for Lee: In regards to the needs that come with private bandwidth versus public bandwidth.  A lot of traditional designs are built on bringing a private network to interconnect branch locations and headquarter locations and data centers where it might have a single source for internet, but if I bring all of that traffic and backhaul it to one primary source, I solve a security need, but I create some challenges on overall bandwidth availability.  As applications move into the cloud, the need for more bandwidth is growing.  What private and public solutions are available?
  6. Question for Tony: In that scenario, a customer that has that dual need, is there a solution that gives them peace of mind that has that hybrid connection with private and public bandwidth, is there a firewall solution or something that is not provisioned as a physical environment, but as a cloud solution?
  7. Question for panel from Audience: If the main link fails, can it route over a backup or cellular connection and still have the firewall protection working?
  8. Question for panel from Audience:  Ethernet becomes the building block for most businesses networks for scalability purposes, what other services are carriers layering on top of Ethernet connections like data center services, hosted VoIP, or SIP trunking?
  9. Question for panel from Audience: Can your cloud firewalls cover mobility and smart devices yet? Are there any firewall solutions for BYOD-friendly business networks?

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