Re: MPLS OAM & the IETF

[George Swallow <swallow@cisco.com>]

> Could you please clarify option (1) a bit more? If this route is
> taken, still cooperation is needed between ITU and IETF. For example
> ITU may need MPLS signaling extensions. Also in some cases packet
> processing may need to be aligned between ITU and IETF in order to
> avoid conflicts. For example ITU may consider an MPLS path-trace that
> uses TTL expiration, which requires a TTL expired MPLS packet to be
> forwarded to MPLS OAM module, while GTTP considers sending MPLS TTL
> expired packets to ICMP/GTTP module. There needs to be a coordination
> between IETF and ITU in order to find a common method which could
> determine whether a packet should be forwarded to OAM or ICMP/GTTP
> module.

It's precisely issues such as these that lead me to believe that it
would be best if *only one* standards body owns a core technology.
Certainly other bodies should be free to create applications, define
extentions, and do implementation agreements.  But when it come to
something a central as the basic forwarding plane, one group alone
should handle it.

Allowing another body to redifine core functions WILL lead to
interoperability problems.

...George

==================================================================
George Swallow       Cisco Systems                  (978) 497-8143
                     250 Apollo Drive
                     Chelmsford, Ma 01824