MPLS have their own switches?

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Sep 9, 2020 at 1:30	comment	added	rnxrx		Nope - it's literally where the term MPLS originated - to include LDP et al. The original implementations mapped the label space (..and thus signaled LSP's) to VPI/VCI values. Later flavors of MPLS mapped to other transports/namepaces - like G-MPLS to WDM lambdas, etc. Take a look at the original tag switching draft authored by Cisco - tools.ietf.org/id/draft-doolan-tdp-spec-00.txt from '96 which, among other things, introduced the forerunner of LDP (TDP), etc.
Sep 8, 2020 at 3:38	comment	added	Ricky		So basically, they didn't do MPLS. They had what some would today call "SDN"... something outside the ATM switch handling MPLS, and programming the ATM switch(es) to do what they do: VCs and routing/switching of ATM cells.
Sep 8, 2020 at 0:41	comment	added	rnxrx		As an example of ATM switches doing MPLS see the BPX 8680 - which literally used a router as a tag switch controller to program the actual ATM switch. The original MPLS drafts were actually in the context of standardizing Cisco's tag switching and IBM's ARIS - both of which were trying to make the ATM fabric move IP at speed. As for FR in the 90's? Most of it was actually ATM switches providing Frame Relay - again see the Cisco Stratacom, Nortel, Fore, etc WAN switches (although a few like Sprint used routers).
Sep 7, 2020 at 21:42	comment	added	Ricky		I've never heard of any ATM hardware doing MPLS. (FRF5/FRF8 for transport and termination of FR isn't MPLS, but does mean one didn't need dedicated FR switches) MPOA was a thing for a few years, but never really gained much traction as IP and Ethernet were supplanting everything else.
Sep 7, 2020 at 5:26	history	answered	rnxrx	CC BY-SA 4.0