I was reading about MPLS and it mentions about same ISPs. How does MPLS work if the sites are located in different countries, the countries may not have the same ISP available there?
Many ISPs have contracts with ISPs in other countries and can do inter-provider L3 or L2 VPNs.
Other times, if your WAN is large enough, you would potentially have multiple WAN providers so some of your locations would connect in to your corporate network with Provider A and others with Provider B.
Other times, you can have the two providers install circuits and connect directly to each other at a Meet Me location.
In other cases, you wouldn’t use L3VPN services and instead just use direct Internet access circuits and run VPNs, either through SD-WAN or some other method.
The correct solution to the problem varies with many variables about your network. It’s not really possible to indicate the proper solution for your particular usecase with the information you’ve provided.
I operated a global MPLS network. We used lightwave (optical) circuits to from multiple providers to operate our MPLS network.
Inter-as MPLS via labeled unicast and other methods of joining MPLS networks together are only really used when two providers merge. Inter-as MPLS via labeled unicast is by far the preferred method, but less supported across vendors. The other method involves redistributing IGP’s into BGP on one side and then redistributing the IGP addresses in BGP into the far side IGP, and then peering route reflectors between providers. This method, while widely supported, is messy and removes the built in knobs to prevent routing loops. It gets messy fast.
I hate that marketing corrupted the meaning of MPLS.
Ignore me, just an old man yelling at the clouds.
How does MPLS work if the sites are located in different countries, the countries may not have the same ISP available there?
You can sometimes get MPLS across countries but only via if your ISP has a partner in that country.
I set up a lot of them years ago between Canada and the US.
However these days I would avoid MPLS and just do some from of SD-WAN solution or even basci IPSEC tunnels as there is so much internet bandwidth.
Back in the day MPLS was a great option to get guaranteed bandwidth between two locations but it was always costly to get setup and slow to get changes made.
You can use MPLS between routers that are in the same rack. It works the same way if the routers are in different countries. Location doesn’t matter
Well, that depends on what you mean by “MPLS”…
Not necessarily, however, you have to contact your SP and explain your use case(s) to them in order to ensure they support InterAS MPLS.
There’s Inter-AS MPLS, but it’s not really super widely deployed outside of Frankenstein ISPs trying to get their own regional networks talking to each other. Most global MPLS providers will have in-country or in-region MPLS POPs wherever you want service, and if they don’t have MPLS partner providers in the country then they’ll get a point-to-point circuit from some local carrier between your service address and your MPLS provider’s nearest POP. Broadly similar to how it’s done domestically if your carrier can’t provide direct service to your location.
Inter-AS MPLS aka Carrier of Carrier.
Not neccesarily. It depends on your ISP.
We have 100+ locations with most locations having local ISP providing the underlying L2 connectivity, then our ISP operate MPLS on top of all this, and we get one seamless L3 topology.
Like others have said, it depends on what agreements your ISP have with other ISPs.
It’s already been said, usually you have existing agreements between ISPs. Another thing is push pop of tagging. Typically you will pop the tag off for vendor X and push tag Y to carrry across. Then when exiting do the same thing.
Use sdwan, in this case your isp can be anyone, but it’s not mpls vpn. If someone is not in a country, do internet vpn. How big is a network is part of the plus of an ISP. If an ISP is in a country, it can rarely reach every company, so it will lease a l2 line from the local isps and manage it for you in case of problems
Then you use a provider that operates in both countries.
Some ISPs run Inter-AS CSC (carrier-supporting-carrier).
For your curiosity: MPLS Layer 3 VPNs Inter-AS and CSC Configuration Guide - MPLS VPN Carrier Supporting Carrier with BGP [Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers] - Cisco
Mpls as a customer won’t matter to the isps. You generally order private line circuits and do your own routing. If you need to cross isp foot prints youd either vpn back or sometimes the isp can order from another isp to establish a layer 2 cross connect on your behalf
For MPLS, yes. There are other options though. SDWAN is one. The other would to have the non-MPLS sites have Dia circuits, and create an IPSEC tunnel to your host MPLS site.
Would be much easier to do SDWAn…
I agree mostly, but there are instances where private Ethernet circuits are required. Otherwise, VPN is the way to go.
I’m not going to ignore you. I’m here if you need someone to talk to.