| How do you go about choosing the best wide area | | | | would use is of utmost importance, especially if you |
| network for your business? Will it be Metro Ethernet | | | | require delivery services in a city or rural area with a |
| or MPLS? What are the determining factors? | | | | dated infrastructure. |
| First of all, it's important to know bandwidth isn't the | | | | Determine your business's needs. Consider the pros |
| defining solution. Most businesses think if they | | | | and cons of each type of service and make a "wish |
| upgrade from a DS3 line to an OC3 circuit their | | | | list" of desired functions you're business absolutely |
| network problems will be solved. Wrong! Setting up | | | | needs. Also, consider the locations of your offices in |
| your network's infrastructure should be your | | | | relation to connectivity. Are they all located in a |
| business's top priority. | | | | metropolitan area or in remote areas? Can one carrier |
| Comparing Metro Ethernet and MPLS isn't like | | | | provide Ethernet access to all your office's locations? |
| comparing apples with apples. Metro Ethernet would | | | | If not, then MPLS would best fit your business's |
| work great as an access technology, while MPLS (a | | | | needs. |
| layer 3 technology) would suffice as your business's | | | | MPLS benefits a network which uses multiple |
| backbone. The advantage of MPLS is it's QoS (quality | | | | connection speeds and has multiple stakeholders. |
| of service). | | | | Metro Ethernet is better at connecting separate |
| When deciding which WAN technology to choose, | | | | offices locations where staff are doing similar work. |
| price versus bandwidth and the overlapping | | | | Most WANs consist of installing Metro Ethernet |
| capabilities are what's important. It can be hard to | | | | interconnects while MPLS serves as the backbone. |
| compare the various technologies for each carrier | | | | But if you have to chose one technology based on |
| since each offer a variety of similar WAN products. | | | | the flexibility of access methods, supported |
| Do your research before purchasing. | | | | transports, scalability of bandwidth demands, QoS |
| Keep in mind WAN technology relies on an LEC (local | | | | and traffic-prioritizating capabilities, then MPLS is your |
| exchange carrier) to transmit bandwidth from the | | | | WAN of choice. |
| "last mile" of a remote site. Because of this need for | | | | Keep in mind that each business's network |
| an LEC, WAN circuit outages are due to physical | | | | infrastructure is unique. It's best to conclude that |
| layer issues at a CO. Selecting the right vendor | | | | "one size doesn't fit all". Do your research and |
| versus which type of technology your business | | | | purchase the WAN that best fits YOUR business. |