Almost all bridges offered by vendors
for Carrier Ethernet applications are capable of functioning both as bridges and as
routers and often as MPLS switches as well, so one system can handle a multiplicity
of protocols and services.
?– When customers are using the provider??™s network to interconnect their bridges,
rather than to interconnect their routers, the use of bridges in the provider??™s network,
at least at the edges, becomes more important. As discussed in this chapter,
there are a number of optimizations for traffic delivery, such as those provided by
MVRP, that are offered only by 802.1 bridges.
?– ???Network religion??? and/or the ability to clearly differentiate one??™s offerings from a
competitor??™s can play important roles in a provider??™s selection of an implementation
technology.
When Does This Solution Not Fit?
There are scenarios where bridges are not as suitable for offering Carrier Ethernet
solutions:
?– When Carrier Ethernet services are only a small portion of the traffic carried by an
existing network, for example, an MPLS network, it is not practical to run provider
bridges directly on the links between bridges; those links are best left to the MPLS
world.
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