MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
Executive Summary
About IS
Internet Solutions (IS) is Southern Africa’s most established and experienced Internet Service Provider.
Since 1993 IS has been providing end-to-end connectivity solutions and related services across the
African continent. IS is now also able to self provision, having received an ECNS license in 2009. This is
enabling the company to deliver fully aggregated telecommunications services to the South African
market.
The innovative solutions and services offered by IS are underpinned by the company’s founding
principles; developing a robust infrastructure that enables corporates and other organisations to
communicate, which is then brought to life and implemented by the passionate people who work at the
company. For 18 years IS has been delivering these products and services to over 80% of South Africa’s
top businesses, from listed companies to Non Governmental Organisations, local and national
Government and small to medium sized enterprises.
All IS products and services are built on a world-class, secure and resilient infrastructure, delivered
according to global best practices and in partnership with the world’s leading technology vendors, such as
Cisco and Microsoft. IS is a Microsoft Gold Partner with competencies in Hosted Messaging and
Collaboration (Hosted Exchange and SharePoint) and Advance Infrastructure (Managed Hosting)
Solutions. IS is the first ISP in Africa and the Middle East to achieve this accreditation. Similarly, in 2002
IS was certified as a Cisco Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), the first company outside of the
US to be awarded this accolade. IS also embraces open source technology and partners with leading
local and international companies to deliver business ready Linux and open source solutions.
IS continues to enjoy market leading positions across multiple vertical market segments through the
company’s current product mix of Virtual Private Network (VPN), Hosting, Access, Security, Mobile,
VOIS, Wireless, Broadband and Application Services solutions. Recent growth in the African economy
has resulted in IS spreading its services across all parts of the continent, as clients demand reliable and
robust networking connectivity throughout Africa.
IS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data and is certified as a 110% BBBEE compliant
company, meeting the Level 2 contribution requirements to achieve this status.
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
International MPLS VPN Network
International Backbone
IS’ international MPLS VPN infrastructure consists of resilient points of presence (PoPs) strategically
positioned around the world in: New York, London (Telehouse Docklands and Heathrow), Mauritius,
Namibia, Kuala Lampur & Hong Kong to ensure that any corporate can conveniently connect to their
branch offices, or partners regardless of where these offices are located. All of IS’ network nodes have
been deployed in secure IS maintained facilities and are managed by resillient network management
systems.
To provide extended reach, Internet Solutions have also entered into a strategic “interconnect”
partnership with multinationals and communication service providers to enable the communication needs
of customers in over 225 countries globally. The “interconnect” is achieved by constructing an MPLS VPN
Network to Network Interconnect (NNI) between Internet Solutions’ MPLS VPN network and IS’ partner
MPLS VPN network.
Figure 1: Establishment of NNI
NNI’s are constructed so as to ensure that all classes of service are honoured in order that the customer
application’s experience is identical, regardless of which partner network the data is traversing. This is
achieved by matching the class of service of both parties at the interconnect point.
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
Figure 2: IS’ International MPLS VPN Backbone

IS MPLS VPN International Nodes:
London (Docklands, Heathrow), New York, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong

IS MPLS VPN South African Nodes:
Rosebank, Bryanston, Cape Town Bree, Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein,
Krugersdorp, East London, Richards Bay, Melrose Arch, Pinelands, Nelspruit, George and
Polokwane.
International Fibre
With capacity on cable systems on Africa’s East and West Coast, IS is able to provide customers with
high capacity, high availability, redundant international fibre in order to provision customer MPLS VPN’s.
Backed up by International submarine capacity across SAT-3, SAFE and with the recent investment as a
consortium member into SEACOM, Internet Solutions currently boasts connectivity to major cities in
Europe, North America, Latin America, Australasia and the Asia Pacific region through our own
infrastructure and interconnect arrangements with multiple global communications service providers.
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
The SEACOM cable system provides high capacity international fibre optic bandwith along the East
Coast of Africa through South Africa, Mozambique, Madacascar, Tanzania
and Kenya with landing
points in London and India. IS has deployed multiple STM1 connections between its South African Points
of Presence (PoPs) and London Telehouse. IS is in a unique position to offer high capacity bandwidth at
prices significantly lower than other fibre offerings. Internet Solutions is also in discussions to obtain
capacity on the new West African Cable System (WACS), a planned submarine cable system linking
South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa.
International MPLS VPN
IS’ MPLS VPN infrastructure delivers multiple classes of service to customers running multiple
applications which have either mission critical and/or best effort network requirements. Additionally, IS
offers interclass data bursting which ensures maximum efficiency of bandwidth usage. Example: a
mission critical application requires additional bandwidth and other applications are temporarily idle, the
mission critical application will be given additional bandwidth that it requires.
FEATURES
BENEFITS
Global Reach – IS network
MPLS base connectivity between IS nodes in South Africa, New York,
London, Malaysia and Hong Kong
Global Reach – Extended
reach
Via strategic NNI arrangements, Internet Solutions can provide MPLS
base reach to over 200 countries globally
Fully redundant, diversified
fibre network
Ensure Maximum availability, reliable network performance and Quality
of Service
Service quality
SLA guarantee, service availability and MTTR when needed.
Can provide monthly reports as needed
One-Stop Shop
Single ended ordering and fault reporting, single billing
Managed CPE service
IS Managed routers supplied on a global basis.
Classes of Service
Seamless Class of service to meet different application needs
Security
One Global VPN – secure and private
Table 1: International MPLS VPN Features and Benefits
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
International MPLS VPN Service Level Agreements
IS offers Service Level Agreements (SLA) on its MPLS VPN services. The four primary
parameters relevant to the MPLS VPN SLA’s are defined as follows;

Availability - Network availability is measured as the total availability of the network
measured over a calendar month.

Packet Loss - Packet loss is a measure of packets sent to a destination that do not elicit
corresponding return packets; those missing packets are termed lost packets.

Latency (Round Trip Delay) – This is the time delay for a packet to travel across the IS
backbone whether locally or internationally.

Jitter – The difference in latency between any two consecutive data packets averaged over a
month.
The values associated with these SLA’s are specified in the SLA documentation. For details of
the specific commitments for a service, please refer to the relevant SLA document, available from
your Account Manager.
International MPLS VPN Services
Customized and competitively priced, Internet Solutions can meet any global communication requirement.
The list below indicates the services that are currently available:
Premium MPLS VPN Services
MPLS VPN services that is delivered between South Africa and London Telehouse and New York over
both East (SEACOM) and West Coast (SAT-3) cable systems for increased availability and resilliance.
This service is delivered in a failover configuration between both cable systems ensuring high availability
and resiliency.
The following are end-to-end managed services delivered via 5 distinct classes of service, in order of
priority:

Voice/MMRT,

Video Conferencing,

Platinum,

Gold and

Silver
Distinguished from each by their respective SLA parameter commitments.
Standard MPLS VPN Services – SEACOM only
MPLS VPN services which are delivered between South Africa and London Telehouse over the East
Coast (SEACOM) cable systems only.
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
With the current launch of SEACOM, IS is able to provide capacity across SEACOM to clients looking at
an MPLS service from South Africa to London and New York.
The following are end-to-end managed services delivered via 5 distinct classes of service, in order of
priority:

Voice/MMRT,

Video Conferencing,

Platinum,

Gold and

Silver
Distinguished from each by their respective SLA parameter commitments
Standard MPLS VPN Services – SAT-3 only
MPLS VPN services which are delivered over the West Coast (SAT-3) cable systems only.
IS is able to provide capacity across SAT-3 to clients looking specifially at an MPLS service from South
Africa to London and New York.
The following are end-to-end managed services delivered via 5 distinct classes of service, in order of
priority:

Voice/MMRT,

Video Conferencing,

Platinum,

Gold and

Silver
Distinguished from each by their respective SLA parameter commitments
Standard MPLS VPN Services – SAFE
The SAFE cable provides the capacity between South Africa and the Asia Pacific area. The SAFE cable
runs directly from Umtinzini in Kwazulu Natal to Penang in Malaysia, with a stop in Mauritius and
Reunion. From Penang IS has contracted further capacity on to the IS Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong
MPLS Node, IS is able to provide capacity across SAFE to clients looking at MPLS service from South
Africa to the Asia Pacific region.
The following are end-to-end managed services delivered via 5 distinct classes of service, in order of
priority:

Voice/MMRT,

Video Conferencing,

Platinum,

Gold and

Silver
Distinguished from each by their respective SLA parameter commitments
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
Additional Services
Layer 2 AToM service
Any transport over MPLS is a Cisco standard, enabling IS to deliver a Layer 2 service over an MPLS
Core.
This technology enables customers to keep their existing edge infrastructure that previously delivered
Frame Relay, Ethernet or ATM WAN connectivity, while IS “tunnels” these layer 2 connections across a
resilient MPLS Core infrastructure..
This service enables the client to control all the traffic characteristics (e.g. quality of service) within the
AToM circuit while taking advantage of the resiliency of the Internet Solutions MPLS core infrastructure.
Figure 3: AToM service
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MPLS VPN
International VPN Overview
Clear Channel Service
IS’clear channel service provides secure point-to-point lease line solutions over the east coast cable
system – SEACOM.
This is ideal for corporates requiring a point-to-point circuit between their geographically dispersed office.
This is provisioned exclusively over the East Coast cable system in options of STM1 (155Mbps) or DS3
(45Mbps). The service is delivered from either a co-location facility (example: IS’ hosting facilities) or to
the customer premises, with no service guarantees over the last mile.
Figure 4: Clear Channel Service
For a more in depth description of the IS MPLS VPN Service or any of the IS service offerings,
please consult with your IS Account Manager or mailtoinfo@is.co.za
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