I waited in line for less than an hour at the AT&T store last night.  Got home, got connected and was most impressed by AT&T’s OSS-Operational Support System and was making calls in less than five minutes.  I got the iPhone for convergence of the iPod and a phone.  Now with one device I can do both.  And the video on the iPhone is vastly better than the iPod.  Movies and my own Flash tutorials are significantly better.  To that end, one of the purposes of this blog is to give you the viewer free podcast tutorials in a variety of formats.

Free Podcast Tutorials on MPLS-Multi-Protocol Label Switching

This week’s free tutorial is on MPLS-Multi-Protocol Label Switching.  You can download any or all of the files here: (right-click and save as):
http://www.techtionary.com/audio/mpls

Please note that these tutorials may be removed without notice.  So if you want them, go get them now.

Shown in the tutorial is the IP-Internet Protocol packet before and with the MPLS “label” attached or “tagged” on as it was originally called.  MPLS consists of four elements, label bits, experimental bits, a stack bit and TTL-Time-To-Live bits which indicate the number of Label Switch Routers passed.

Shown here is the “multi-protocol” part of MPLS and how it works with the other major networking protocols such as ATM, Frame Relay, Ethernet and others.

To begin with, IP-Internet Protocol packets may have a number of labels or "tags" attached to them.  MPLS-Multi-Protocol Label Switching is just one type of label.  In a Provider Provisioned Virtual Private Network known as PWE3 or PPVPN, there may be more than one label.  Here are some terms associated with labeling:

- Push - add a label

- Swap - replace the label

- Pop - remove the label

Here are some other terms associated with labeling.

The outer label identifies the LSR-Label Switch Router.

The inner label identifies the destination VPN-Virtual Private Network.

As if one label was not enough, MPLS providers may add more labels.  These labels may exist within the MPLS provider’s network but may be removed or "popped" as they leave the network to the customer premise or "edge" or LER-Label Edge Routers. 

A PPVPN control module adds "pushes" labels and determines routing via LSR-Label Switch Routers where labels may be "swapped" as they change or cross to other networks called AS-Autonomous Systems.  The term LVC-Label Virtual Channel has been associated with this emerging concept.

As long as each MPLS provider or AS-Autonomous System communicates the value of QoS-Quality of Service for the MPLS label to other MPLS providers and routes it accordingly, each carrier can determine their own MPLS labeling system. That is, if each AS carrier routers video as video or email as email or other known rules, then the packets will be treated with the desired QoS.

When leaving the MPLS Network or network "edge" the MPLS and other label(s) 

are popped (off) and the IP packet returns its original size.

New tech-IT tutorials are also being added every week.  These audio-video tutorials are available in number of media formats such as Adobe-Flash (.swf), .mp3 (audio only), Apple QuickTime (.mov) - iPod (.mv4) and other formats.   The detailed presentation is available as part of the NVBE-NACSE VoIP Business Executive certification course available from TMCnet

If you also study the great "sci-fi" writers or futurists such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne you will find other interesting observations.  My assessment is that "technology always changes faster than we can predict, while society always changes slower."  Both however, can take radical changes at anytime.  The iPhone is a radical change because it makes us think different even about something as old as the phone.  If you look at the 300,000,000+ million copies of iTunes and 100,000,000 iPods this is more than a casual exploration of technology, it suggests that the technology promised is now here.

Cheers, TC