Thanks to Irwin Lazar for a pointer to the article: "What's motivating organizations to deploy MPLS?". His excerpt made me go read the article.

Here's what they said that really caught my eye. (bold emphasis is mine)

In our recent survey of 285 IT professionals, 48% of respondents indicated that MPLS deployment would have either some impact or a significant impact on their company's IT budgets and infrastructures over the next year.

When we drilled down into the survey data, we found a strong relationship between the deployment of VoIP and the deployment of MPLS. In particular, the vast majority of companies that are either making their initial deployment of VoIP or expanding their VoIP deployment are also planning on expanding their QoS policies. The vast majority of these companies expect to expand their QoS policies by implementing MPLS.

When we talked to IT organizations about their deployment of MPLS we were not surprised that many of them also pointed to VoIP deployment as a major reason for deploying MPLS. Part of their reasoning was that voice traffic follows an any-to-any pattern, so they value the any-to-any connectivity that MPLS offers. Another part of their reasoning was the realization that voice requires stringent levels of network performance, so they also value what most of the service providers refer to as their real-time traffic class.

Let me bulletize those three points for clarity -

• 48% of respondents are being impacted by MPLS now or in the next year.
• There's a tangible relationship between the deployment of VoIP and the deployment of MPLS.
• The any-to-any connectivity that MPLS may ease the delivery of voice traffic that also follows an any-to-any pattern.

I've talked a lot here and in the VoIP community forums and articles about the need for call quality. MPLS is one way, perhaps the preferred way, if delivering Quality of Service to an IP network. Personally, I encourage everyone I work with on VoIP deployments to implement MPLS and extensive call quality and service delivery mechanisms. But, I typically work with larger organizations that can and should use MPLS. It isn't for everyone and it isn't for most small businesses.

What's crucial is that you document and fully understand your VoIP requirements and expectations before you get into the game. Make your MPLS decision early and don't let yourself get halfway down a migration path before determining that you really do need MPLS. That means rework, which is always costly and delays service delivery.



Technorati Tags: MPLS. QoS. Quality of Service, call quality. VoIP design

Technorati Tags: MPLS. QoS. Quality of Service, call quality. VoIP design