Subject: RE: Draft charter for L2VPN: Perfect LAN emulation

From: "Mark Seery" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 20:04:40 -0700

Alex,

Perhaps not emulation, but I think a definition of "LAN" might be useful.
i.e. a broadcast/multicast segment, the interconnection of emulated bridges,
a single virtual bridge, etc. Or if that granularity of description is not
desired by the group, then a statement to that effect.

As to perfect, or imperfect I have not strong opinion, as long as people are
comfortable that standars compliant Ethernet devices are able to attach to
the service and use it.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Zinin [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 4:23 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Draft charter for L2VPN: Perfect LAN emulation

Reading the discussion between Matt, Eric, et al, it seems that
we have two main questions at hand:

 1. Should the charter define the level of transparency of
    the L2 VPN mechanisms to the higher-layer protocols, and
    if so, what should the required level be?

 2. Should the charter say that the WG will work with IEEE 802.1
    to ensure proper interworking.

My reading of the discussion on the first item is that we don't have a
strong case for spelling out that a perfect emulation is required.
If anyone disagrees, please speak up.

I didn't see a discussion on the second issue, but it seems like a
reasonable proposal to me.

Alex

---

From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 12:46:53 -0700

Summarizing...

>     if so, what should the required level be?

It seems that there is a feeling that some clarification of
the VPLS definition should be provided in the charter, yet
it should not preclude us from working on IPLS.

I suggest the text of the charter be changed to read--

  1. Virtual Private LAN Service--L2 service that emulates LAN
     across an IP and an MPLS-enabled IP network, allowing standard
     Ethernet devices communicate with each other as if they were
     connected to a LAN segment.

--then leave any further details to requirement/framework/app-stmt
documents, plus add a separate item to the list of std'ized solutions
that would cover IPLS (provided we agree the WG should take it on.)

Hamid Ould-Brahim <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean by "interworking" here but if you
> mean coordinate with ieee, the answer is yes.

Now that I've seen the discussion on this, I think it is not clear to
me either. I assumed proper interworking between standard Ethernet
devices and the VPLS service, but I think I'll just put a line saying
the WG will coordinate with IEEE 802.1

Alex