A BGP/MPLS IP VPN consists of customer edges (CEs), provider edges (PEs), and providers (Ps). PEs and Ps are carrier devices, whereas CEs are BGP/MPLS IP VPN customer devices.

Inter-site communication can be implemented through VPN. A site can only belong to only one VPN.

In most cases, CEs are unaware of VPNs and do not need to support MPLS or MP-BGP.

Ps only need to provide basic MPLS forwarding capabilities and do not need to maintain VPN-related information.