VoIP Multisite Solutions

When Deploying VoIP using MPLS or Metro-E, Which one is best?

In this post ‘VoIP Multisite Solutions’, you will see benefits and some of the drawbacks when implementing VoIP over Metro-E and MPLS. From their flexibility, scalability and redundancy. And how both of these methods can help you optimize your VoIP topology for QoS.

Multi-level Protocol Label Switching or MPLS, has become a telecom standard for networking VoIP multi-site solutions. Back in the early 2000’s, all you saw was Point-to-Point and ring-down circuits, aside from Frame Relay and ATM. Delivering a variation of services and benefits. We, as telecom engineers, don’t seem to take advantage of them. Another offering is the Metropolitan Ethernet (MAN) or Metro-E (MEN), which delivers interconnectivity via fiber links acting as a LAN from the Service Provider’s perspective, allowing for fast and efficient dedicated transmission.

This past week, I was performing a multi-site failover test between 5 campuses for a local State College, here in FL. This solution was deployed over a Metro-E environment. I have to say that the failover latency was very efficient. In the past, I have done these type of testing over MPLS and have noticed a bit of a delay when it came to the failover cycle. Keep in mind that Bandwidth plays a factor here.

These are the key components when deploying an Avaya Multisite Solution=

• 1.- Benefits and Drawbacks
• 2.- Metro-E – in depth
• 3.- Subscriber’s demand
• 4.- QoS

1.- Benefits and Drawbacks

One of the Drawbacks of Metro-E – The fact that you need a fiber link delivered to the customer’s premises before you can go ahead and implement your solution, could be a limitation.

Distance between sites – Metro-E is a perfect solution for MAN, but for WAN, you might consider MPLS or VPLS. Although in some cases some providers are catching on to this issue and working hard to integrate their Metro-E services with multiple Central Offices.

Flexibility – on-demand routing – This functionality of MPLS allows for reroutes when needed. For Metro-E refer to your Service Provider to see if it is available.

Scalability – MPLS is a multi protocol solution, allowing you to scale.

Redundancy – Failover – MPLS and Metro-E can also be set as a redundant circuits on Mesh Topology configuration.

2.- Metro-E – in depth

Beyond the MAN – Metropolitan Ethernet can be delivered to multiple locations outside the Metropolitan Area Network or MAN through different Central Offices causing the price to increase.

Fast-E and Gig-E – Metro-E can be broken down into Fast-E (100 mbps) and Gig-E (1K mbps). Some Service Providers will allow you to purchase a fraction of either of these two solutions, scaling the bandwidth from a 10% to a 90% of its offering.

Burstable Bandwidth – If you decide to purchase a fractional service with 20% of bandwidth, but want the ability of using more if needed, then you can choose a ‘Burstable Bandwidth’ plan which will charge you for the extra bandwidth used.

3.- Subscriber’s Demand

The bandwidth can be affected based on the subscribers’ demand. Always check with your carrier to see if they provide dedicated bandwidth. And always subscribe to the Fiber dedicated service.

4.- QoS

Metro-E works on the layer 2 allowing the handling of the tagged traffic to be delivered efficiently with less latency than MPLS.

Question

Which other benefits do you find that MPLS offers?