Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) Interoperability with Customer Edge (CE) Bridges
RFC 6246

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                   A. Sajassi, Ed.
Request for Comments: 6246                                  F. Brockners
Category: Informational                                    Cisco Systems
ISSN: 2070-1721                                            D. Mohan, Ed.
                                                                  Nortel
                                                              Y. Serbest
                                                                    AT&T
                                                               June 2011

          Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) Interoperability
                    with Customer Edge (CE) Bridges

Abstract

   One of the main motivations behind Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS)
   is its ability to provide connectivity not only among customer
   routers and servers/hosts but also among customer IEEE bridges.  VPLS
   is expected to deliver the same level of service that current
   enterprise users are accustomed to from their own enterprise bridged
   networks or their Ethernet Service Providers.

   When customer edge (CE) devices are IEEE bridges, then there are
   certain issues and challenges that need to be accounted for in a VPLS
   network.  The majority of these issues have been addressed in the
   IEEE 802.1ad standard for provider bridges and they can be leveraged
   for VPLS networks.  This document extends the provider edge (PE)
   model described in RFC 4664 based on IEEE 802.1ad bridge module, and
   it illustrates a clear demarcation between the IEEE bridge module and
   IETF LAN emulation module.  By doing so, it shows that the majority
   of interoperability issues with CE bridges can be delegated to the
   802.1ad bridge module, thus removing the burden on the IETF LAN
   emulation module within a VPLS PE.

Sajassi, et al.               Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 6246              VPLS Interop with CE Bridges             June 2011

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6246.

Copyright Notice

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   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
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   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
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   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
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   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Sajassi, et al.               Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 6246              VPLS Interop with CE Bridges             June 2011

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
      1.1. Conventions ................................................4
   2. Ethernet Service Instance .......................................4
   3. VPLS-Capable PE Model with Bridge Module ........................5
   4. Mandatory Issues ................................................8
      4.1. Service Mapping ............................................8
      4.2. CE Bridge Protocol Handling ...............................10
      4.3. Partial Mesh of Pseudowires ...............................11