- VPN
(Virtual Private Network) A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks. VPNs are widely used by enterprises to create wide area networks (WANs) that span large geographic areas, to provide site-to-site connections to branch offices and to allow mobile users to dial up their company LANs.

- VPN over MPLS

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MPLS is a development by the Internet community. It seeks to combine the flexibility of the IP network layer with the benefits provided by a connection-oriented approach to networking.

MPLS is a Multi protocol label-switched network solution using the principle of separating control from data transfer. This architecture enables MPLS to use a range of different forwarding methods system that can carry multiple network layer protocols. MPLS sends information over a wide area network (WAN) in frames or packets. Each frame/packet is labeled and the network uses the label to decide the destination of the frame. In an MPLS network we can define explicit paths or let IP routing decide the path.