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MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) is a high performance mechanism commonly used in wide area networks. Taking the benefits of frame relay and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technologies and adding innovations of its own, MPLS WANs work with existing IP routing protocols. MPLS is commonly deployed to connect thousands of locations over private networks.

With networks of this size, bandwidth and performance issues can and do occur. Other issues with MPLS include cost and the time it takes to install across a large region. Despite some of these disadvantages, MPLS is a tried-and-true technology, and many IT managers aren’t ready to abandon it. Meanwhile newer technologies such as IP acceleration, cloud-based WAN services, and software as a service have emerged. While it’s understandable that enterprises are reluctant to ditch their existing MPLS networks completely, they could take a hybrid approach.

For example, regional MPLS WANs that support VoIP and videoconferencing could be supplemented with IP acceleration and WAN optimization as a service used between regions. Similarly, it’s possible to use MPLS networks for specific business applications along with cloud-based networking as a service solutions for other bandwidth-intensive applications.

One example is to use a WAN optimization as a service in conjunction with MPLS. WAN optimization as a service involves connecting wide area networks to highly optimized “points of presence” (POPs) which are maintained by the service provider. Like other “as a service” services, customers are able to take advantage of the service provider’s resources as a service rather than having to invest in the hardware and software on their own. In addition to avoiding upfront capital expenses, customers do not need to support these optimized WANs because the service provider takes care of all of the behind-the-scenes support work.

What does such a service optimize? It depends on the service provider. However, you can expect a cloud-based wide area network virtualization and optimization service to optimize TCP/IP traffic, Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring, compression, de-duplication, and other complexities typically involved in wide area networking.

Another option involves IP acceleration for applications. Service providers often offer Web-based applications as a service, and now it’s possible for them to host legacy apps as a service using IP acceleration. With this option, instead of network users accessing the enterprise’s applications from an on-premises server, they access it from the service provider’s optimized network. IP acceleration allows for faster response times because the optimized network finds the fastest routes possible. This results in reduced latency issues and improved availability – and it reduces the need for enterprises to build and support their own data centers.

By blending MPLS with cloud-based WAN services in such a manner, it becomes possible to reduce MPLS bandwidth costs and gain access to more bandwidth at the same time. With IP acceleration added to the mix, users gain faster access to applications. Moving to an optimized, cloud-based WAN doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing solution. By taking a hybrid approach, you can leverage your existing technologies and gain the benefits of emerging ones at a potentially lower cost overall.

During the course of the previous decades, the United States seemed to be living a “bottle of champagne” life style on a “light beer” financial budget. While unwisely borrowing capital to make up for the taxation reductions for the prosperous, and cover the cost of unfunded wars and bank bailouts, the financial obligation weight has been made worse through the inevitable economic break down. This is verified by the unemployment figures and foreclosure statistics.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said, “Long-term unemployment is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great Depression.”

“We see the perfect storm brewing with rising supply and falling demand,” said Ivy Zelman, chief executive of basic research firm Zelman & Associates.

Experts at Barclays Capital estimate some four million mortgage loans are in some period of foreclosure.

In California foreclosures are among the largest in the U.S. The present California real estate worries are referred to as ‘shadow foreclosures’. These are real estate properties that have actually been foreclosed on by financial institutions, which might potentially involve households on the brink of foreclosure, and mess with the overall marketplace.

Simply because, mortgage lenders own the property overall, shadow foreclosures are not actually a component of the property inventory available for general public sale. Banks plan to, at some point, offer for sale these hidden items – consequently, the term ‘shadow’ – which suggests they are not currently in the market today, but can be thought likely to become a deluge washing into the market in a little while, will more than likely depress home price levels far more.

A additional round of depressed residential home price levels could very well drive more home-owners, who are currently past due on a monthly payment, or even a couple of them, into a foreclosure.

For a lot of California citizens the property and bank loan downturn will remain seriously real. The longer-term landscape is every bit as dismal. Nationally, more expected hardships are even growing more ominous on the horizon.

In Arizona, officials state that foreclosure lawsuits have tripled in the recently (2008-9), and legally binding contract conflicts are shifting upward 77 percent over the the previous two years.

Mortgage foreclosures in Southwest Florida have injured large numbers of families and have decimated entire communities.

“I am seeing the ripple effects that destroy the family structure,” Judge Jackman-Brown said.

Dual distinctive movements that happen to be on the upswing in the foreclosure course of action countrywide can stretch and intensify this crisis in the several months and years to come.

In one trend, significantly more judges are ruling against creditors and actually wiping away mortgage obligation, or invalidating foreclosure sales, on the grounds that mortgage firms fail terribly to generate the correct documentation. In some cases, the bankers are judged to have wronged debtors by other tactics.

In the other trend, prime borrowers finding themselves in “underwater” mortgages, or negative equity, are increasingly walking away from their properties.

A lawyer for the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, Hilary J. Bauer, who represents homeowners defending foreclosure, said; “Until you’re standing amidst 40 people who are worried about losing their homes, you can’t really appreciate how significant the whole downturn was.”

Dennis Nolte, an LPL rep at Partners Federal Credit Union in Orlando, Fla. says. “People need to vent and then they need to focus on what they can realistically do.”

“The government is throwing everything at the market but the kitchen sink,” said Peter Schiff, president of Euro pacific Capital. “It can’t prop up housing markets forever.”

“Every dark cloud has a silver lining,” or so they say. What follows is the lining in this dark cloud. It is known as a Tax Deed Sale.

Earlier this year Richmond County, Georgia recouped thousands of dollars in back taxes during a tax deed sale of properties whose possessors were behind on property taxes from only a few years earlier. Buyers were motivated by the low-cost values and were looking to produce a first-rate investment.

Ben Bynum, a tax deed investor said, “I like that you can determine what you pay for a property,” he said. “It’s based on what you think the property is worth.”

In due course a large number of these foreclosure properties wind up in the ‘too hard basket’ and get caught up in a tax deed sale. When you hit bottom, the best thing to do is get yourself into the ‘bottom of the market’.