Consultation – WAN architecture for a central site connected to dozens of small independent sites

One of our members currently uses a MPLS-based network. Their contract finishes up at the end of this year, and they are investigating the possibilities for their next architecture.

They have a lot of questions:
- MPLS or VPN over Internet?
- fully managed end-to-end by supplier, or some responsibility delegated to the connected parties?
- QoS or just increased bandwidth?
- compression techniques like Riverbed / Ipanema / Expand: have they been investigated? tested? used?
- other services included? (Internet pass-through, web filtering, email, etc.)

They are interested in sharing experiences with companies that have a similar structure:
- a central HQ
- connected to about 100 independent companies in Belgium:
- that are relatively small in size
- and that usually have limited IT knowledge.

We thank our members who gave us their point of view. We summarized the reactions of our members in a consultation paper (below). The details are reported to this member.
The BELTUG team