Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) N. Sprecher
Request for Comments: 6670 Nokia Siemens Networks
Category: Informational KY. Hong
ISSN: 2070-1721 Cisco Systems
July 2012
The Reasons for Selecting a Single Solution for MPLS Transport Profile
(MPLS-TP) Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
Abstract
The MPLS Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) is a profile of the MPLS
technology for use in transport network deployments. The work on
MPLS-TP has extended the MPLS technology with additional
architectural elements and functions that can be used in any MPLS
deployment. MPLS-TP is a set of functions and features selected from
the extended MPLS toolset and applied in a consistent way to meet the
needs and requirements of operators of packet transport networks.
During the process of development of the profile, additions to the
MPLS toolset have been made to ensure that the tools available met
the requirements. These additions were motivated by MPLS-TP, but
form part of the wider MPLS toolset such that any of them could be
used in any MPLS deployment.
One major set of additions provides enhanced support for Operations,
Administration, and Maintenance (OAM). This enables fault management
and performance monitoring to the level needed in a transport
network. Many solutions and protocol extensions have been proposed
to address the requirements for MPLS-TP OAM, and this document sets
out the reasons for selecting a single, coherent set of solutions for
standardization.
Sprecher & Hong Informational [Page 1]RFC 6670 MPLS-TP OAM Considerations July 2012Status 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/rfc6670.
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Sprecher & Hong Informational [Page 2]RFC 6670 MPLS-TP OAM Considerations July 2012Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................4
1.1. Background .................................................5
1.2. The Development of a Parallel MPLS-TP OAM Solution .........7
2. Terminology .....................................................8
2.1. Acronyms ...................................................8
3. Motivations for a Single OAM Solution in MPLS-TP ................9
3.1. MPLS-TP Is an MPLS Technology ..............................9
3.2. MPLS-TP Is a Convergence Technology ........................9
3.3. There Is an End-to-End Requirement for OAM ................10
3.4. The Complexity Sausage ....................................10
3.5. Interworking Is Expensive and Has Deployment Issues .......11
3.6. Selection of a Single OAM Solution When There Is a
Choice ....................................................13
3.7. Migration Issues ..........................................14
4. Potential Models for Coexistence ...............................15
4.1. Protocol Incompatibility ..................................15
4.2. Inevitable Coexistence ....................................16
4.3. Models for Coexistence ....................................16
4.3.1. The Integrated Model ...............................17
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