Networkbytes

What is MPLS? MPLS stands for ‘ multiprotocol label switching ’; it’s a technique that can be used to ensure you’re making the most of your available bandwidth, and not ‘wasting’ bandwidth on unnecessary tasks. There’s a lot of technical and in-depth information around detailing what it is and how it works, but right now let’s strip everything back to basics and take a look at the simplest MPLS explanation. You drive up to the car park of a large shopping centre you’ve never visited before. There are not only multiple entrances, but there’s also many different ways to get from where you are now to the shop that you want to go to. At each fork in the path that you come to, you need to check the signs and make a decision about which way to go in order to get to your destination in the quickest way. Data does the same on an IP network. Data has a known final destination but it has no known route. Instead, it does what we would do in an unknown shopping centre; it reads the signs at every