Not sure how dumb this question is so I'll float it here and beat any flames back with a little Godwin's Law or other Bourseyesque implements of power...
I'm trying to cut a few financial corners in our remote site budgets. I have sites that are homed back to the main campus offices via ATM and other leased lines. These sites also currently have dedicated Internet access. I was doing some brain cramming re: MPLS and possibly killing our dependence on ATM by going the MPLS route over a common provider. It struck me to venture a guess as to why I couldn't utilize the same connection for both - Internet transit via the common provider as well as an MPLS mesh between all my sites and my main campuses also via that same connection with the common provider...
Can someone swing the clue-by-four for me aiming for what's left of my mullet and learn me - thanks...
If you feel this is OT then reply to me direct if there is other interest I will summarize...
I'm trying to cut a few financial corners in our remote site budgets. I
*insert network crash noises here*
have sites that are homed back to the main campus offices via ATM and
other leased lines. These sites also currently have dedicated Internet
access. I was doing some brain cramming re: MPLS and possibly killing
our dependence on ATM by going the MPLS route over a common provider. It
struck me to venture a guess as to why I couldn't utilize the same
connection for both - Internet transit via the common provider as well as
an MPLS mesh between all my sites and my main campuses also via that same
connection with the common provider...
Wouldn't this be something similar to frame relay? If I understand
MPLS correctly, this should be a fairly simple implementation ...
If you feel this is OT then reply to me direct if there is other interest
I will summarize...
I'm interested in responses to this ... MPLS is still a four letter word .. 
I'm interested in responses to this ... MPLS is still a four letter word
..
<http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2006-02/converged.html>
here's me hiding this article from 'management' who are again chasing the
'converged' network 
In some cases it appears convergence makes some
sense, I think often though (in my very humble experience) it's more of a
buzzword-compliance test than anything else. In the case which kicked off
this discussion I was struck that perhaps an older and simpler solution
(ipsec vpn and some strict firewalling) would provide the seperation
necessary over a single network connection.
Oh the fun of converged networks, mpls private vpn's 
<http://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2006-02/converged.html>
here's me hiding this article from 'management' who are again
chasing the 'converged' network 
In some cases it appears
convergence makes some sense, I think often though (in my very
humble experience) it's more of a buzzword-compliance test than
anything else.
actually, it is commonly an internal power play. we'll deploy mpls
over our lambdas and then take over the ip business unit, the frame
relay business unit [0], the voice folk, ...
randy