MPLS and VRF

typfromdaco

I was told a couple of days ago that I need to familiarize myself with these protocols and that I will be using them at work within the next couple of months. I am going to take ICND2 next month and I am understanding EIGRP and OSPF pretty well already. Does anyone have any advice or recommendations for learning these new technologies (for me) fairly painlessly?

higherho

Understand BGP prior to learning MPLS and VRF's. These technologies are typically on the service provider track (CCIP). I went to a Juniper Course (JMV) to learn MPLS & VPNS and learned a lot on MPLS / VRFs. A lot of fun!

CBTnuggets, juniper bytes, and youtube videos. Signaling protocols (LDP / RSVP), MP-BGP, etc. Start by understanding how MPLS works (basics). It's a lot of fun and I think you will enjoy it.

DevilWAH

MPLS is very much a two sided technology. Do you need to.learn it as the client or the provider? For client it can be almost transparent. While I have never used either in a live situation, I picked up the basics of both from CBT nuggets and you tube. And a few labs I played with in GNS3. Once you get your head round the idea of how they work setting them up is not so hard.

SecurityThroughObscurity

There is a solution for you.
MPLS Fundamentals by Keith Barker.
He walks you through the concepts, implementation and verification of an MPLS.

Jackace

Like others have said, neither is terribly difficult to understand the basics and figure out what is happening. The Wikipedia pages on both are pretty good for understanding what they are and why we use them. From there you should be able to start learning the commands to use the technologies. Like others have said you should probably sit down and get a decent understanding of BGP as well because that is how the VRF information is learned and shared by the routers.

networker050184

DevilWAH wrote: »

MPLS is very much a two sided technology. Do you need to.learn it as the client or the provider? For client it can be almost transparent.

My thoughts exactly. MPLS is a very big topic. Figure out what you are actually going to need to know and then formulate a plan of attack.

phoeneous

From the client side there isnt much you'll see to do with mpls, it's mainly on the provider side. You should learn bgp instead which I use on all of my ce mpls routers.

typfromdaco

I will be working on it from the provider side. Thanks Security, I just went to Amazon and picked up a copy of the book that you suggested! I subscribed to a few youtube channels to get familiarized with BGP per the suggestion by everyone, thanks for the advice!

SecurityThroughObscurity

I was talking about cbt nuggets course.

But that book is also good

typfromdaco

Ha ha... oh well, I can take a book in the facility, not a computer. I will look for the CBT nuggets as well... thanks!