Is MPLS Still Relevant in the SD-WAN Era?
Ever since SD-WAN arrived, people have predicted the end of MPLS. In reality, most large enterprises now run hybrid WANs: SD-WAN on top, with a mix of MPLS, broadband and mobile links underneath. The question is not “MPLS or SD-WAN?” but “which sites still need MPLS?”
What MPLS still does best
- Guaranteed performance: contractual SLAs on latency, jitter and packet loss across the provider network.
- Real-time traffic: voice, video and industrial control traffic that cannot tolerate internet variability.
- Privacy: traffic never touches the public internet.
- Single provider accountability for end-to-end performance.
Where broadband and SD-WAN win
- SaaS and cloud traffic, which is better sent directly to the internet
- Small branches where MPLS cost per Mbps is hard to justify
- Fast deployment of new or temporary sites
A practical hybrid model
- Keep MPLS at data centres, hubs and large sites with real-time applications.
- Use dual broadband or broadband plus 4G/5G at small branches.
- Run SD-WAN everywhere to steer each application over the best path and fail over automatically.
This typically reduces WAN costs while improving cloud performance — without giving up predictability where it matters.
We design hybrid WANs that combine MPLS / VPLS with SD-WAN. Get a WAN assessment.
