MPLS and VPN Architectures, Volume II

Chapter 1. MPLS VPN Architecture Overview

Virtual private networks (VPNs) have recently received a lot of attention from equipment manufacturers, consultants, network designers, service providers, large enterprises, and end users due to their cost advantages over traditional enterprise networks. As with most technologies, the foundation for today's VPN networks and underlying technologies was created more than 20 years ago. During its development, end users discovered that it made financial sense to replace links between sites in their own private network with virtual connections across a shared infrastructure. The assumption for doing this was that a shared environment (or VPN) is equivalent in terms of security and privacy to the network (links) ...