Master the world of Layer 2 VPNs to provide enhanced services and enjoy productivity gains

• Learn about Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

• Reduce costs and extend the reach of your services by unifying your network architecture

• Gain from the first book to address Layer 2 VPN application utilizing both ATOM and L2TP protocols

• Review strategies that allow large enterprise customers to enhance their service offerings while maintaining routing control

For a majority of Service Providers, a significant portion of their revenues are still derived from data and voice services based on legacy transport technologies. Although Layer 3 MPLS VPNs fulfill the market need for some customers, they have some drawbacks. Ideally, carriers with existing legacy Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks would like to move toward a single backbone while new carriers would like to sell the lucrative Layer 2 services over their existing Layer 3 cores. The solution in these cases is a technology that would allow Layer 2 transport over a Layer 3 infrastructure.

Layer 2 VPN Architectures introduces readers to Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (VPN) concepts, and describes Layer 2 VPN techniques via introductory case studies and comprehensive design scenarios. This book assists readers looking to meet those requirements by explaining the history and implementation details of the two technologies available from the Cisco Unified VPN suite: Any Transport over MPLS (ATOM) for MPLS-based cores and Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol version 3 (L2TPv3) for native IP cores. The structure of this book is focused on first introducing the reader to Layer 2 VPN benefits and implementation requirements and comparing them to those of Layer 3 based VPNs, such as MPLS, then progressively covering each currently available solution in greater detail.