By Jason Deign

February 9, 2004

Cisco Systems® - one of the foremost proponents of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) - is elevating the technology to a higher plane with the unveiling of a powerful set of management tools which will open up new horizons for service providers.

MPLS has been widely adopted at the heart of many service providers' infrastructures to reduce operating costs by integrating multiple networks onto a single converged IP/MPLS core infrastructure.

With end customers increasingly requesting secure MPLS-based VPN services, the technology is now moving into the access network as well as being deployed at the heart of large enterprises' own networks.

As a result, the need to manage this MPLS infrastructure efficiently has become an imperative as service providers strive to reduce costs while improving the level of service as network applications become ever more demanding.

At the MPLS World Congress in Paris this week, Cisco will be introducing a suite of embedded MPLS management tools, which represent a significant step forward in service providers' ability to manage MPLS environments.

It gives service providers a comprehensive suite of intelligent tools and technologies specifically designed to decrease operational expenditure, increase productivity, simplify provisioning, troubleshoot faster and boost availability and convergence.

The expanded MPLS management portfolio now includes:

• Cisco IOS MPLS Embedded Management - a set of architectures and value-added services such as LSP Ping, Traceroute, VCCV, AutoTunnel and AutoMesh easing the deployment, operation, administration and management of MPLS networks, targeting critical areas such as fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security management.
• Cisco Info Center VPN Policy Manager 3.1 - a software module that collects fault information and correlates it with MPLS VPNs that are affected by events such as configuration changes or access list updates, yielding information used to manage service level agreements (SLAs).
• Cisco CNS NetFlow Collection Engine 5.0 - a software product which provides infrastructure metering for a variety of functions, such as traffic accounting, usage-based billing, network capacity analysis and planning, network quality of service and SLA performance.
• Cisco CNS Performance Engine 2.1 - a software product which simplifies the collection, aggregation and forwarding of performance and usage data from a wide variety of Cisco devices and data sources, according to policies programmed by higher-layer applications.

Service providers are also showing a special interest in innovations such as Cisco Any Transport over MPLS (AToM) as this helps them to reduce cost by using the same core network to support innovative new services such as Metro Ethernet, alongside traditional Frame Relay or ATM traffic.

MPLS also has a crucial role to play in helping service providers grow these Metro Ethernet networks effectively. Cisco recently introduced the Cisco IOS MPLS Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) to help service providers offer Ethernet-based multipoint services using Layer 2 VPNs.

With this growth in the importance of MPLS for service providers and their customers, managing MPLS has started to pose a number of challenges when it comes to provisioning large numbers of VPNs.

Integrating VPNs with operational support systems and billing systems can be challenging, as can dealing with the large number of network elements involved and with integrating multiple technologies into a single service.

Furthermore, service providers can have difficulty sourcing effective customer self-provisioning tools; product interoperability can be a challenge; and equipment often has to be configured manually.

Virtually all of these problems are addressed by the latest innovations in MPLS embedded management that have been developed by Cisco. In addition, the tools can help service providers to reduce operational expenditure.

While this is usually only around a quarter of total expenditure, it is an important area for operators to focus on because its levels tend to be consistent (whereas capital expenditure varies with the economy).

Furthermore, gains in operational efficiency have higher profitability and represent higher average revenues per user.

Another area that Cisco IOS MPLS Management can help service providers with is in avoiding downtime as a result of network mis-configuration.

Every minute of downtime carries a significant cost - not just in direct revenue loss, but also in impaired financial performance, lower productivity, reputation damage and expenses on items such as temporary staff, overtime, travel and equipment rental.

Joseph Fusco, director of IP Services for the service provider Infonet, says: "Infonet is pleased to see the continued release of features that address management and security for MPLS networks.

"We are especially pleased about the new fault management features and have immediate implementation plans.

"We compliment Cisco for continuing to address service providers' needs and look forward to the continued release of features that enhance management and security in MPLS networks."

At the MPLS World Congress, Cisco will be demonstrating MPLS Management in the Cisco booth and addressing these and other industry issues in a number of conference presentations:

Wed 11 Feb 15:00
Topic: Managing MPLS Networks Deployed in and for the Enterprise
Presenter: Thomas D. Nadeau, Technical Leader

Wed 11 Feb 15:30
Topic: Inter-provider QoS for MPLS VPNs
Presenter: Bruce Davie, Cisco Fellow

Thur 12 Feb 14:30
Topic: IETF New Developments in MPLS and IP OAM
Presenter: George Swallow, Distinguished Engineer,Co-Chair of the IETF's Working Group on Multiprotocol over Label Switching

Fri 13 Feb 11:30
Topic: Qos Based Routing for Diff-Serv-aware-TE Enabled Network
Presenter: Francois Le Faucheur, Development Engineer, IOS Layer 3 Services

With many large business already deploying MPLS within their own networks and more service providers now working to extend MPLS beyond their network core and out into the customer access layer, the need for normalization is growing.

At the MPLS World Congress, Cisco will be an active participant in the industry debate about MPLS interoperability and standardization that is needed to help provide effective service guarantees when deploying MPLS.

Cisco will be present in booth 101 throughout the MPLS World Congress 2004 at the Sofitel Forum Rive Gauche (10-13 February). Please visit http://www.upperside.fr/mplsworld2004/mplswc2004intro.htm for more info.

For more information on Cisco at the MPLS World Congress, please contact:

Marc Musgrove
Cisco Systems, Inc.
+44 (0)20 8824-6200
mmusgrov@cisco.com

Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.