In most organizations users at different sites need to access centralized company servers, voice and other intranet resources, and do so with speed and security.
To achieve this, distributed organizations typically need to securely inter-connect the voice, video and data networks at their locations over a Wide Area Network (WAN).
In the past this required dedicated point-to-point leased lines, such as T1 or DS3 circuits. These are expensive and complex to manage, especially on a large scale.
Today Virtual Private Network (VPN) technologies enable sites to be inter-connected over the Internet much more economically. One popular and elegant solution is Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).