Subject: [mpls] Liaison from MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance on RFC 3036 Proposed Revisions

From: "Alexa Morris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 08:38:02 -0700

This email is being sent on behalf of Rao Cherukuri, [email-masked]. 

Dear George, Loa and Ina:

A recent message on the MPLS WG mailing list
(http://www.cell-relay.com/mhonarc/mpls/2004-Sep/msg00043.html) has
suggested changes to RFC 3036 ("LDP Specification") and called for comments
on the proposed changes.  One of the proposed changes is to deprecate the
use of the Host Address FEC TLV.  Two Implementation Agreements published by
the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance (MFA), "MPLS Proxy Admission Control
Definition" and "MPLS Proxy Admission Control Protocol", MFA.6.0.0 and
MFA.7.0.0
(http://www.mplsforum.org/tech/mpls-proxy-admission-control-definition-ia.pd
f and
http://www.mplsforum.org/tech/mpls-proxy-admission-control-protocol-ia.pdf)
make use of the Host Address FEC TLV.  MPLS Proxy Admission Control provides
a bandwidth-based reservation/admission facility for MPLS networks.  There
are implementations of this protocol in progress.

While the proposed changes make a Prefix FEC TLV with a 32-bit mask
equivalent to a Host Address FEC TLV, adopting the Prefix FEC TLV would
require changes to approved and published MFA documents, and changes to the
implementations.  Also, since MPLS Proxy Admission Control only uses host
addresses, using the Prefix FEC TLV would necessitate an additional check
that the prefix was always 32 bits.  Therefore, the MFA kindly requests that
the Host Address FEC TLV not be deprecated, and that it continues to be
supported in future revisions of LDP.

In RFC 3036, there is a semantic difference between a Host Address and a
prefix with length 32.  The new version proposes to remove the semantic
difference.  This is not a problem for the MPLS Proxy Admission Control; we
are just requesting that the Host Address codepoint not be deprecated.

Please advise us as soon as possible about the decision on this issue.

Cordially,
Rao Cherukuri
MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance
Technical Committee Chair

_______________________________________________
mpls mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpls

---

From: Ina Minei <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 17:35:06 -0700 (PDT)

Alexa,

	The request to remove the Host FEC was proposed because it didn't
seem to be in use by any LDP implementation. Your input shows that this is
not the case.

	Luca, Arashmid, Markus, Rama,

	As proponents of this change, your input on this issue would be
appreciated.

	In particular, if the Host FEC is not deprecated, does it
still make sense to relax the rules of mapping packets to LSPs and treat
Host FECs and Address FECs equivalently when they are identical?

			Ina

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 13:35:43 +0200

Alexa,

we have received this liasion and plan to give a more formal response,
after consulting the working group.

Working group,

based on the liasion from MPLS FR Alliance I've asked Ina to leave the
Host FEC in an updated version (Internet Draft) of the LDP Specification
tht we hope will be published beforre the cut off for the upcoming
meeting in Washington.

At the same time I would like to initiate a discussion on the proper
actions for the LDP protocol. Especially since the previous discussion
on removing the Host FEC was pretty much a show of consensus.

/Loa

-- 
Loa Andersson

Principal Networking Architect
Acreo AB                           phone:  +46 8 632 77 14
Isafjordsgatan 22                  mobile: +46 739 81 21 64
Kista, Sweden                      email:  [email-masked]
                                            [email-masked]