[c-nsp] MPLS, L2TPv3 Layer 2/3 VPN Network Options

[John Osmon]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 06:59:37AM -0500, Eric Kagan wrote:
[...]
> Among the documents, I found some L2TPv3 examples, but most seemed to be 2
> sites talking back and forth - not multiple sites.  The MPLS configs seem to
> be very detailed and require extensive commands.  I have done a few design
> and lab tests, but I am looking for some advise and pointers either off-list
> or on (if others are interested in this as well) from people who have
> extensive knowledge in this area.  I would also be willing to pay for some
> consulting time on the side to assist with the design and configuration.

We pull relatively large (DS3) circuits into very rural areas, and
aggregate a lot of traffic for people in our region.  We were getting
more and more requests from customers where the ideal answer would be
some form of managed VPN service.

In the end, we ended up choosing to use MPLS and RFC2547 BGP VPNs
for the situations you're trying to cover.  I didn't really like
the "layer 2.5 feeling" of MPLS, but was able to work my way through
that bias.  The tools to run RFC2547 have been in place for several
years, and are well known and supported.

You probably need less help than you think to get these things
rolling -- at least I found this to be the case once I decided that
I'd used the tools at hand (RFC2547) rather than wait for other
solutions to mature.