DENOG18

MPLS once was the center of attention in many network talks, workshops and training. Still today it is a predominant technology in use in many networks.

However, those who joined the network community in the past years or almost a decade now from enterprise and datacenter angles, have found very little opportunity to dive into the topic of MPLS. Many perceive the communities still working with expert level MPLS topics hard to engage with.

This workshop tries to go back in time and provide a guided journey through the development of MPLS and how it evolved over the years. It wants to cover original ideas, what became of them and how various protocols over time solved problems of their time and ultimately resulted in the most modern use of MPLS and related technologies for those who were not around when all this was heavily discussed in every other training course.

This workshop is addressed to absolute beginners and those who heard little about MPLS and have a few working assumptions but no solid background.
It does not aim to go to expert level, rather give a solid structure and overview so that context exists for the concepts in play.

The talk will mainly focus on the history, theories and how protocol implemented them as well as some hands-on components of label exchange and packet forwarding in groups while applying various protocols.

Participants should be beginner level or completely new to MPLS.
Basic knowledge of networking concepts is recommended.