MPLS Challenges With the advancing globalizing world, a lot of technological advances have taken place and MPLS

is one of those significant advancements in technology that are related to the telecommunication networking. MPLS has made a very significant progress over the period of last few years and ill paving its way to more advancement is still paving its way to the mainstream deployment in networks all over the world. Despite of all these advancements, there remains several challenges that are associated with the MPLS which are described as under: As already known, MPLS is associated with the high level of complexity as it deals with the high level of functionality and applications. Dealers who deal with MPLS technology in addition to those organizations that are deal with the deploying MPLS now-a-days, must take into consideration the MPLSs continuously changing state and its effects on network performance. MPLS is not the detached and standalone kind of technology, rather its laid over on Layer 2 VPN technologies for example Ethernet or ATM. In addition it must be operated in connection with the other control plane protocols for example IP routing. This type of interactions increases the complexity of the MPLS deployments. The complexity factor gains more importance when, in some cases, four or more protocols are involved in a particular network, that makes careful coordination and validation necessary for the end-to-end system. Integration between the deployment of old and new network services needs tunneling, that, consequently increases the setup needs for a given circuit.

MPLS has gained a lot of significance in the last few years but it is still underdeveloped somehow or other and it is still in the process of evolution i.e. MPLS continues to evolve rapidly. Even now-a-days, a number of extensions to the MPLS protocols, in addition to new functionality, are under development. As we know that the new developments make the old ones outdated and outmoded, the continuously changing nature of MPLS presents a dynamic target to those developing and deploying MPLS.

The dealers must take into consideration whether to implement a new feature having a constant look at the direction of the market. Service providers measure the feasibility of new advancements by asking whether they are a better solution to the problem at hand.

The industry has already segregated into multiple groups on certain issues thus making the situation more complicated as organizations trade off the long term risk of uselessness with the shorter term benefits of executing a certain specific technology.

Interoperability of MPLS equipment in diverse networks remains an issue. The complexities of the MPLS equipment will keep on effecting the performance and scalability even though a lot advances have taken place in the silicon technology.

Typically the challenge is not associated with the MPLS core network, where data is simply being labelswitched, but it actually occurs at the network edge where MPLS must integrate itself with non-MPLS networks, and where services are begun. With the convergence of the network, traffic loads increase and networks must be capable of dealing with the overhead of handling real-time and prioritized traffic. The meshed connections required for VPN deployment quickly scan challenge equipment scalability limitations, in addition to management requirements.

Large service provider networks have the ultimate scalability challenge and must consider the limitations of their equipment as they look to maximize return on investment. The challenges presented by MPLS ultimately makes thorough testing and validation of MPLS systems necessary during development and before deployment. MPLS is by no means a plug-and-play proposition. Performing appropriate due diligence is the only way to ensure success when dealing with a broad-scope and rapidly evolving technology such as MPLS.