How can you overcome MPLS deployment challenges?

1 Understand your network requirements

Before you decide to implement MPLS, you need to have a clear understanding of your network requirements and goals. For example, what are the traffic patterns, bandwidth demands, service levels, and security needs of your network? How do you plan to use MPLS features, such as traffic engineering, VPNs, QoS, and L3VPNs? How do you measure the success and ROI of MPLS? By answering these questions, you can determine if MPLS is the right solution for your network and how to design and configure it accordingly.

3 Plan and test the migration

Migrating from a legacy network to an MPLS network can be a complex and risky process that requires careful planning and testing. Taking into account the impact of the migration on your network performance, availability, and security, as well as preparing for potential issues, such as configuration errors, routing changes, traffic disruptions, and compatibility problems is essential. To ensure a smooth transition and minimize the risks, you should follow a phased and systematic migration approach. This includes conducting a network audit and analysis to identify the current state and gaps of your network, defining the migration scope, objectives, timeline, and roles and responsibilities, designing and documenting the MPLS network architecture and configuration, testing the MPLS network in a lab or pilot environment to verify its functionality and performance, implementing the MPLS network in stages starting with the least critical sites and services, monitoring and troubleshooting the MPLS network during and after the migration, and evaluating and optimizing the MPLS network based on feedback and results.

4 Train and educate your staff

One of the most common challenges of MPLS deployment is the lack of skills and knowledge among the network engineers and administrators. MPLS is a complex technology that requires a high level of expertise and experience to implement and manage effectively. Therefore, you need to invest in training and educating your staff on the fundamentals and advanced topics of MPLS, such as labeling, forwarding, routing, VPNs, QoS, and security. You can use various resources, such as online courses, books, blogs, podcasts, and forums, to learn and update your MPLS skills. You can also seek guidance and advice from experts, consultants, or mentors who have successfully deployed MPLS in their networks.

5 Keep up with the trends and innovations

MPLS is not a static technology but is constantly evolving and adapting to the changing needs and demands of the network industry. Recently, MPLS has seen trends such as MPLS over UDP, which allows MPLS packets to be encapsulated in UDP headers and transmitted over any IP network. Additionally, MPLS-TP enables MPLS to support transport network functions, such as OAM, protection, and recovery; Segment Routing simplifies MPLS routing and traffic engineering; and MPLS in the cloud extends connectivity and services to cloud environments. As a network engineer, it's important to stay up to date with these trends and innovations in order to leverage them in projects, overcome MPLS deployment challenges, and enhance your skill set and career. It's also important to understand the opportunities and challenges they pose for your network performance, scalability, and security.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?