San Jose, Calif.- June 13, 2000 - Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announces the availability of the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP), as standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Cisco's Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology MPLS, enabled by Cisco IOS. Software, allows the construction of highly scaleable and flexible IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that support multiple service levels. LDP defines the standard method for hop-by-hop, or dynamic label, distribution in an MPLS network by assigning labels to routes that have been chosen by the underlying Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) routing protocols. These labeled paths, called Label Switch Paths or LSPs, forward label traffic across an MPLS backbone to a particular destination. Service providers now can offer Cisco's MPLS-based IP VPNs and IP+ATM services across multi-vendor MPLS networks.
"Service providers have moved aggressively to adopt MPLS in their backbones," said Ranjeet Sudan, Cisco senior product manager for MPLS. "With Cisco's implementation of standards-based LDP, we expect deployment of our MPLS solutions to accelerate. We pioneered MPLS with pre-standard Tag Switching and Tag Distribution Protocol several years ago and now offer the broadest set of MPLS solutions based on IETF standards available in the industry." Cisco's implementation of LDP has successfully participated in multi-vendor interoperability testing at the University of New Hampshire and as a part of InteropNet iLabs' public demonstrations at Networld + Interop in Las Vegas last month.
MPLS is delivered in Cisco IOS Software Release 12.0 and later. LDP, available on a limited basis next month, is compatible with Cisco's Tag Distribution Protocol (TDP) on a per port basis, thus ensuring customers a smooth transition to a complete MPLS LDP network. Cisco's LDP implementation interoperates with Cisco's current MPLS VPNs, Class of Service, and Traffic Engineering solutions, thus protecting customers' investments in their TDP-based networks. Additional information on Cisco's MPLS VPN solutions and supported platforms can be found at http://cisco.com/warp/public/732/Tech/vpn/index.html.
