L2 Ethernet Services over an IP/MPLS Network
The inherent properties of an IP/MPLS network mitigate most of the scalability issues by design. IP and MPLS have been widely deployed in large service provider networks, and these protocols have been fine-tuned over the years to offer high levels of stability and flexibility. Table 4-1 shows a brief comparison of the merits of IP/MPLS versus L2 Ethernet networks.
| Feature | Ethernet | IP/MPLS |
|---|---|---|
| Signaling | No signaling | LDP, RSVP-TE, and so on |
| Loop-free topology | Blocked ports via Spanning Tree Protocol | Yes, via routing protocols and Time To Live |
| User and service identification | VLAN ID space limited | Label space more scalable |
| Traffic engineering (TE) | No TE | RSVP-TE |
| Restoration | Via STP ... |
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