MPLS VPN to SD-WAN

In the past two years, SD-WAN has been a bit rampant in the industry, and SD-WAN is generally regarded as a “digger” to replace MPLS VPN. It is believed that MPLS VPN will be phased out by SD-WAN sooner or later. I happened to be involved in the development of MPLS VPN products many years ago, and I have recently been involved with SD-WAN. So I have a lively reflection on the past and present of these two networking technologies.

First, the reason why MPLS VPN can be popular in the past

After 2000, MPLS technology began to scale in the carrier network, especially its natural and VPN services, making MPLS VPN the darling of the government and enterprise networking market. The contrast of its development was mainly point-to-point. Transmission line, in general, MPLS VPN is relative to the previous transmission line, the essence of its advantage is to create the concept of “network” (one point access, any other point in the whole network can be reached), rather than the transmission line has been It is the connection of “line” (one entry, one must go out), which brings a lot of benefits to the customer network. Specifically, from the perspective of the customer, the main points are as follows: