Virtual leased lines (VLL), also referred to as virtual private wire service (VPWS) or EoMPLS (Ethernet over MPLS), is a way to provide Ethernet-based point to point communication over Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) or Internet Protocol networks. VLL uses the pseudo-wire encapsulation for transporting Ethernet traffic over an MPLS tunnel across an MPLS backbone.

Types

There are 5 types of VLLs:

• Epipes: Emulates a point-to-point Ethernet service. VLAN-tagged Ethernet frames are supported. Interworking with other Layer 2 technologies is also supported.

• Apipes: Emulates a point-to-point ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) service. Several subtypes are provided to support different ATM service types.

• Fpipes: Emulates point-to-point Frame Relay circuit. Some features for interworking with ATM are also supported.

• Ipipes: Provides IP interworking capabilities between different Layer 2 technologies.

• Cpipes: Emulates a point-to-point time-division multiplexing (TDM) circuit.

See also

• Virtual Extensible LAN

• Virtual Private LAN Service

References

External links

• Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks (l2vpn) working group homepage

• Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge to Edge (pwe3) working group homepage