Re: Help in understanding an MPLS network (MPLS newbie)

On Nov 12, 1:23 pm, ttripp <ttr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've inherited an MPLS network, and I've not worked with MPLS before.
The more I read, the more confused I am about the network I have.

I have a dozen sites, all connected to a Bellsouth (now AT&T) MPLS
network. Each site has a T1 circuit, and the circuit is configured as
frame-relay on each sites router. I understand this part OK.

Now to the part I don't understand. Each remote site is connected
back to the main site through VPN tunnels. So, each remote site has
one VPN tunnel back to the main site, and the main site has a dozen
tunnels, one to each remote site. Then, each site has a dozen static
routes, all pointing the their local router's WIC IP address.

Is this a typical MPLS setup? What I thought what MPLS did was not
unlike what a traditional frame-relay network did; the customer's
routers handed the WAN traffic to the provider's network, which
through various pieces of routing magic delivered the packets to the
customer's routers on the opposite end. No need to set up VPN
tunnels, and you use a IGP to handle the routing.

Each frame-relay interface is point-to-point, with the IP address part
of a /30 network, with one end being the local router, and the other
end being the AT&T router. Is this also typical?

Most MPLS documentation seems to be geared towards how the provider
sets up their network, not how the customer sets up his part. Any
help would be greatly appreciated, as I have absolutely no
documentation on how this setup came to be. Thanks.

Actually, I got a detail wrong. Three of the sites (including the
main site) are connected through frame-relay, but the other ten are
connected through regular T1. I should point out that AT&T is the
vendor for most, but not all, of these local connections. The MPLS
network is pure AT&T.

.

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