The New WAN Network

Your organization has grown and the simple wide area network (WAN) you are responsible for and familiar with needs to grow to support the needs of that change. Now the WAN is preparing to enter the next generation technology and expand from either a simple point to point and point to multipoint environment to a global diverse cloud environment and you are tasked to learn about this new technology and implement it. Most likely you are in the networking team and/or the architecture group within your organization and it is your job to do this and do it right the first time.

The amount of information on new WAN technologies is enormous and ever growing. As anyone in the network world knows various providers will have their solutions and offer numerous products and options, but it will be your job to understand these solutions and advise your management team on the best options available. Thus, you will need to learn and refer to items at various intervals. One of the newer technologies that is gaining strength in the WAN environment is Multiprotocol Label Switching or MPLS and could be the ideal solution for you. With "Definitive MPLS Network Design" you will be able to take the first important step to accomplishing this goal and ensuring that the process and planning is accomplished correctly. When I first looked at this book, I assumed it was nothing more than an enhancement to the concepts of Frame-Relay and point to point connections, but as I ventured further into the book the inclusion of IPv6 information and Network Engineering items proved my initial assumptions where not only incorrect but extremely off base.

This book will not only provide the first step, but also provides the guidance and hand holding to help you navigate the land of uncertainty that is MPLS. As you start reading about MPLS, you will discover that it is a different type of Wide Area Networking. It is a entirely new concept -- no more leased T1 lines or frame relay clouds, now the concept of point to multipoint and beyond take on an entirely different meaning and theory.

Jim Guichard and his fellow authors, Francois Le Faucheur and Jean-Philippe Vasseur, define not only the concepts like PE (Provider Router) and CE (Client Router) but detail step by step the assembly of the cloud that will be needed to ensure a complete implementation of any MPLS solution. Included are numerous routing features of items like BGP and EIGRP, as well as, features like QoS and multicasting play important parts in the environment that an individual would be building. They further explain the need for interchange between the user environment and the provider environment and the different routing features and procedures that could affect this switch. Within the book, other topics like HSRP and IPv6 are included and detailed. Within only six chapters, the amount of detail and design helps any individual with the basic understanding of WAN technologies optimize and deploy the needed environment.

They say books and real-life meet and sometimes relate, well the timing of this book not only offered a great opportunity to gain further knowledge, but also assistance as I began to deploy and support an MPLS solution for a nationwide project within my organization. The amount of detailed information in the book ensured that all sides of the architecture and design process were covered; thereby, allowing me to deliver and meet the needs of my environment

The only way both Guichard and Cisco Press could have enhanced this material would have been to include a glossary for a quick reference to the book. Yet even with this, I believe that once again Cisco Press has made available through their large pool of authors a combination of high-end and well-developed material that I believe will help any individual. This book is not only an excellent item for any network individual's library, but should be on the quick grab shelf for many having to understand and support MPLS.

Other Reviews

• Helpful Overview of How MPLS Can Be Applied to Gain Advantages
• Case Studies and Straw Men
• The New WAN Network