So you want to use an IPSec VPN to backup your MPLS network.  It can be done, with the right engineering.

In the simplest terms:

• Use BGP between your network and your MPLS provider
• Run GRE tunnels between locations over the Internet VPN, with BGP routing across the tunnels.
• Set these tunnels to be a higher cost route.
• Then, if you then lose connectivity between a site and the MPLS network, your router would switch over to the backup link  via IPSec/GRE

Granted, the GRE VPN performance is nothing like an MPLS network, it’s better than being down completely for a location.

If you would like assistance in configuring such a network, do not hesitate to contact MPLS-Experts.  Our engineers can assist you in implementing this sort of backup network.  Contact us the next time you need to procure a network.  Great prices and great service.

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Network traffic is mapped to the desired Class of Service through the classification amd marking of packets. Traffic types are identified by:

• Source and/or destination network/hosts IP Addresses
• Source and/or destination Protocol Ports
• Traffic with premarked IP Precedence or DSCP bits.

After the traffic is classified, the TOS byte must be marked with the appropriate DSCP or IP Precedence values.  Using these tools, you can customize your Wide Area Network to provide the best performance based on your application requirements.  When you utilized managed service from your carrier, they take care of the classification of date based on a survey that is provided to the customer.

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When your company needs global MPLS network access, you are often faced with the cost/benefit paradigm:  how big should each port be versus what you can afford.  There are certain applications that clearly benefit from using an MPLS network over great distances: SAP, Oracle, VoIP, Video, Citrix.  Then there are applications that really would do just fine via and IPSec VPN over the internet: email and FTP.  There are tools available to manage the routing of these applications that also combine application acceleration.

Ipanema Technologies provides an optimization and acceleration product that will combine multiple physical networks into a unified logical network.

The Ipanema System’s unique ability to guarantee application performance comes from its objective based approach to traffic management. Unlike any other solution on the market, no local device configuration is required to manage the traffic. The objectives are defined in the central management software which then communicates them to the ip-engines. The ip-engines cooperate with each other to form a fully distributed system under the control of the global objectives. In this System there is no single point of failure: if the central management server goes down the System continues to function correctly on the network. This differs from traditional approaches which try to manually configure how traffic should be managed device by device, hoping that good application performance will be the end result.

Applications are defined in the System using identification criteria from network Layer 3 to 7. For example Citrix and HTTP applications can be defined based on published application names and URLs respectively. Once defined, each application has a per-user service level set. This per user service level defines what the network should deliver in terms of network resources for each individual user of a given application. Resources are defined using network attributes such as bandwidth, delay, jitter and loss thresholds. This service level information is contained in a dictionary in the central management software and can be customized to match each enterprise’s unique application requirements.

Acceleration brings response time down, facilitating the quality of experience that users expect. A combination of redundancy elimination, TCP acceleration and application acceleration mechanisms are dynamically applied under the control of Ipanema’s sophisticated global, dynamic optimization features.

Being an Autonomic Networking System, the mechanisms are triggered dynamically depending on the nature of the applications. The system automatically adapts the application flows to emerging conditions in real-time based on a dynamic, global analysis of the traffic mix, user behavior and continuous tracking of WAN resource availability

The Ipanema System optimizes more than just bandwidth – it also manages other characteristics of network resources: delay, loss and jitter. Smart Packet Forwarding technology allows application flows to be managed differently depending on their requirements and on individual user behavior. Packets belonging to real-time flows, such as Voice over IP or video, are forwarded in a manner that prevents the injection of unwanted delay, loss or jitter.

Packets belonging to data-transfer flows, such as with FTP or Email, are forwarded so that they receive the appropriate bandwidth resources without degrading other more delay sensitive flows.  Packets belonging to interactive flows, such as with Citrix or Windows RDP, typically require the lowest transit delay. These flows are analyzed by Ipanema to detect the user behavior in real-time. This unique ability is required to deal with “hybrid” flows such those where users load or save a local file inside a Citrix session, such as document editing. Ipanema is able to prevent the data-transfer phases of the interactive flow from freezing other user’s interactive Citrix sessions.

Traffic can be routed through the MPLS network or the IPSec VPN to offer the desired performance.  The net result is easier network management combined with lower bandwidth costs.

With the cost of private networks, everyone should take a look at the varied application acceleration and bandwidth optimization tools that are available.  While many of these tools can appear expensive, when you run the numbers comparing the investment to the recurring bandwidth costs, the investment might make sense for you.  Instead of that 2Mbps MPLS port in Guangzhou, you might be fine with 512K and use IPSec for the other traffic.

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