Subject: [rbridge] MAN scale and future uses of Rbridge

From: rute.sofia at siemens.com (Sofia, Rute)
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 12:35:29 +0200

Guillermo,

> 
> -Regarding scalability problem of high number of flat MAC 
> addresses in 
> the MAN,
>    There is no such problem,  provided each campus network 
> uses routers 
> to participate in the MAN. In this case the only MAC addresses to be 
> handled by the
> Rbridges are the MACs of the routers used to accesss the 
> MAN.(See Link 
> State Over MAC, Garc?a and Duato 2003   proposal for such an example)
> - Another aspect to analyze consider in the MAN environment is the 
> interoperability with provider bridges (.1ad .1ah) and their 
> encapsulations.
> Guillermo

There is no such problem, if you consider that the operators will configure things properly. In other words, if the proper traffic-engineering solutions apply.

In any case. We are not here (I believe) discussing such operator issues...the fact is that if Rbridges are to be applied within a campus then the simplest (but non-optimal) solution applies. However, if this is to be scaled to the MAN (and here I am considering the aggregation area) then there are other implications that must be considered from the mechanism perspective.

In other words, the flooding provided by IS-IS is a great idea and gives plenty of flexibility to develop new, better than ST ideas. If this is to be extended, my 2cents on this is that the issues mentioned before are worth checking.

Regards,
Rute