As SD-WAN gains more widespread adoption, you may be asking, “How should I compare SD-WAN vs MPLS?” This is an interesting question, but thinking about networks this way misses the central distinction between SD-WAN and MPLS. SD-WAN capabilities are a significant enhancement to enterprise networks, and work with a range of underlying technologies, including MPLS.
A Brief History of MPLS
A bit of history (skip to the next paragraph if you were working in networking 20 years ago). MPLS was invented at a time when complex networks were straining the capacity of the available processors for routers.
