Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) has been around for several years. It is a popular
networking technology that uses labels attached to packets to forward them through the
network. This chapter explains why MPLS became so popular in such a short time.
This chapter starts with a definition of MPLS. It also provides a short overview of pre-MPLS
network solutions. The benefits of MPLS are listed, and the end of the chapter explains briefly
the history of MPLS in Cisco IOS.