25, or leased lines. MPLS provides quite similar functionality compared to its predecessors
through the creation of separate, isolated communication paths based on di?¬? erent labels. Tra?¬? c
isolation, however, provides neither con?¬? dentiality nor authentication of the data traveling via the
MPLS network and opens the data to multiple risks when traveling over a shared infrastructure,
such as a possible data leakage due to con?¬? guration errors or even illegal tapping.
Encryption Options
It has been obvious throughout the history of communication protocols that protection of data
while it travels over unsecured data channels could be achieved with encryption. However, encryption
has proven to be a di?¬? cult task as it requires multiple other elements to be done correctly as
well, so as not to impact modern data communication networks. As mentioned earlier, encryption
impacts the performance, redundancy, and load balancing of modern-day networks, and also
the requirement for any type of group communication makes the use of encryption problematic.
Furthermore, there have been several options of where to implement encryption: on the link level,
network level, or application level. Let us browse through them brie?¬‚ y to see the pros and cons
of each.
Link-Level Encryption
Link-level encryption was one of the earliest types available and had no demand for standardization
as there always was a product of the same vendor on both sides of the link.
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