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Citing wikipedia on MPLS VPN

There are three types of MPLS VPNs deployed in networks today: 1. Point-to-point (Pseudowire) 2. Layer 2 (VPLS) 3. Layer 3 (VPRN)

I am confused about the difference between SD-WAN and MPLS-VPN types mentioned above (I know the difference between SD-WAN and MPLS) but this the MPLS-VPN is confusing me. Any clarification is much appreciated.

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    SD-WAN is not a protocol (or set of protocols), but a deployment technique. So I don't see how you can compare them.
    – Ron Trunk
    Feb 19, 2018 at 3:22

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Ron already mentioned this in the comments but let me try to offer a little more explanation.

SD-WAN, from a vendor perspective, is offered as a solution which involve a set of technologies designed to simplify deployment and traffic management over WAN. It's a child of the "SDN" umbrella, and basically means you would have software doing a lot of automation for you for device provisioning(instead of a NE popping into the hardware and configuring the CLI) and you(the user) can manage a lot of things(mostly) from a dashboard. Capabilities offered as part of solution vary by vendors. Viptella's vEdge, CISCO's IWAN, VMWare's VeloCloud are some examples of this.

MPLS VPN, on the other hand, is a VPN created over a MPLS underlay. This VPN can allow you to route packets ( L3 VPN ) or switch frames ( pseudowire, VPLS ).

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  • now it is much more clear. I am assuming the NE will have to be more involved in MPLS VPN as compared to SD-WAN, right?
    – OAH
    Mar 29, 2018 at 2:00

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