MFA working on a geographic interconnection standard

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: TIM GREENE ON VPNS
07/26/05
Today's focus: MFA working on a geographic interconnection
standard

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* MFA Forum work to iron out MPLS VPN geographic coverage issues
* Links related to VPNs
* Featured reader resource
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Fluke Networks
Download the Special Report: VoIP: Challenges, Drivers, Hurdles,
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VoIP, poses many questions, among them; vendors vs. carriers,
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Challenges, Drivers, Hurdles, and Recommendation analyzes the
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Today's focus: MFA working on a geographic interconnection
standard

By Tim Greene

One of the big stumbling blocks to network-based MPLS VPN
services is geographic coverage.

If you go to a single provider and you have a far-flung
business, chances are your carrier won't be able to reach all
the sites without using another carrier's network to help get
there.

If you are trying to do this today, chances are carriers don't
have formal network-to-network interfaces in place to enable
them to hand off traffic to each other without losing quality of
service markers or without subjecting the traffic to security
threats.

The MFA Forum, a merger of the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance and
the ATM Forum, is working on an interconnection standard that
would deal with these issues. The proposal being worked on would
define how QoS would be transferred from network to network and
how customer data and carrier signaling would be kept private.
All of these are essential to creating services that can reach
all sites on international corporate networks and that support
service-level agreements.

The forum is also working on how to get various access
technologies to interoperate over an MPLS core network. It is
attempting to set up frame relay-to-ATM over MPLS,
ATM-to-Ethernet over MPLS and frame relay-to-PPP over MPLS.
These connections will enable standardized ways for individual
sites to connect to an MPLS VPN service via whatever access
method is available. That way, businesses can switch to MPLS
VPNs without altering their access lines, making a migration to
MPLS smoother.

To make migrations smoother for service providers the forum is
working on a standard for converting ATM signaling to MPLS
signaling. This will make it simpler for carriers to leave ATM
gear in their networks as they add MPLS equipment and have them
interoperate.

MFA Forum members at a meeting of the group last week said
standards for all these capabilities could be ready sometime
next year, and some as early as the end of this year.

When the are in place, MPLS VPN service should become more
available and attractive.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Verizon joins managed security game
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3772>

2. Future-proof your network
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3561>

3. VoIP security threats: Fact or fiction?
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3773>

4. The ROI of VoIP <http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3564>

5. Appliances replace DNS, DHCP software
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3562>

Today's most forwarded story:

Verizon joins managed security game
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlvpn3775>
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Tim Greene

Tim Greene is a senior editor at Network World, covering virtual
private networking gear, remote access, core switching and local
phone companies. You can reach him at <mailto:tgreene@nww.com>.
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Fluke Networks
Download the Special Report: VoIP: Challenges, Drivers, Hurdles,
and Recommendation

VoIP, poses many questions, among them; vendors vs. carriers,
end-user adoption, management complexity, etc. Once these
questions are answered then the benefits of convergence can be
realized. Through research the following special report VoIP:
Challenges, Drivers, Hurdles, and Recommendation analyzes the
questions and the best practices behind implementing a converged
network.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=108869
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Breaking VPN news from Network World, updated daily:
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/firewalls.html

Archive of the VPN newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/vpn/index.html
_______________________________________________________________
3 Trends that will have a major impact on the WAN- impact on
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discussion about three of the biggest tremors on the IT
landscape - web services, networked remote storage and grid
computing - and how they are triggering exponential growth in
inter-site traffic and complicating Quality of Service (QoS)
management.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=108782
_______________________________________________________________
FEATURED READER RESOURCE
THE NEW DATA CENTER: SPOTLIGHT ON STORAGE

This Network World report takes a look at storage trends such as
virtualization, encryption and archiving. Here you will also
find seven tips for managing storage in the new data center, how
storage encryption can help ease the threat of identity theft,
why one exec believes its all about the information and more.
Click here:
<http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2005/ndc4/>
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