Netifice to introduce private network services over MPLS

Netifice Communications is using its MPLS infrastructure to launch private network services, providing for its IP virtual private network customers to hide their data traffic from public view.

"One of things we’re most proud of is our ability to build networks per our customers’ requirements," said Greg Davis, vice president of marketing and product management at Netifice. "What we found is that we have customers that wanted entirely private networks except for a single gateway to the Internet."

Netifice acquired its MPLS backbone when it bought EPOCH Networks last year. While Netifice immediately implemented the traffic management capabilities of the Cisco architecture, it held off on using the private network and class of service functionality. But due to customer requests, Netifice began upgrading software to allow for private network capabilities. The service works by assigning unique routing tables to individual customers. The customers in turn assign private IP addresses to their remote sites and terminals. Those private IP addresses can only be interpreted by the MPLS routers in the network. Because the private network requires no public addresses to route data throughout the VPN, all the company’s traffic is hidden from view to outsiders.

The private network set up has several advantages. Not only does it protect the privacy of customers’ communications, the lack of public IP addresses protects against denial-of-service and other hacker attacks, Davis said.

Netifice has not decided when or if it will introduce class of service functionality in the core. MPLS, through labeling data streams, can not only more effectively manage traffic routes over a network, it can prioritize different types of data. Often carriers use their MPLS networks to establish separate high priority levels for voice and video and three separate levels of data. When Netifice bought EPOCH last year, Davis said, it’s network was underutilized and though Netifice has built up its customer base since then, it still has far more capacity over its network than it can use. Netifice has begun prioritizing traffic on the edges of the network where access bottlenecks occur, but has not encountered any problems in the core, even for its customers using IP voice and video, Davis said.