This week I had the fun task of setting up an MPLS connection between my company’s Charlotte NC and Columbia SC offices, and I was shocked at how simple it is.
It took a lot of work from our telecom vendor to set it up, I’m sure, but the networking setup and conversion side that I was responsible for was a piece of cake. Previously we were paying big bucks for a flat Layer 2 point to point connection between the offices, which was great for running client-server apps, but horribly inefficient for internet use, which is the direction that everything is heading. Our new setup is much better, only directing traffic across the MPLS connection that needs to, and everything else out to the internet. This gives us better bandwitch in both locations.
In a couple of weeks we’ll be doing the same thing in our new Atlanta office, and I’m hoping it will be just as easy. At that point my company will officially have… what, a WAN? That’s very official sounding… I like it.