OIF-UNI/LMP - service discovery

["Robin Qiu" <robin_qiu@hotmail.com>]

Hi Bala, all,

I have seen some LMP "Service Discovery" implementations (as specified in 
oif2001.125.7, section 9) that mandate the message exchange sequence as 
illustrated in Figure 9-2 (page 42), i.e.
* one ServiceConfig Msg#1 from UNI-C to UNI-N
   (ServiceConfig Ack/Nack from UNI-N to UNI-C), followed by
* one or more ServiceConfig Msg#2 from UNI-C to UNI-N
   (one or more ServiceConfig Ack/Nack from UNI-N to UNI-C), followed by
* one ServiceConfig Msg#3 from UNI-N to UNI-C
   (ServiceConfig Ack/Nack from UNI-C to UNI-N)

While this is literally compliant with the spec (page 42, section 9.3)
"There can be more than one exchange of ServiceConfig Message #2  and the 
corresponding ServiceConfig Ack/Nack. A ServiceConfig Message #3, is sent by 
the UNI-N to the UNI-C after the latter has received the Client Port-Level 
Service Attributes corresponding to all the links between the TNE it 
represents and the clients represented by the UNI-C.",
I wonder if this is the authors' intention, to enforce this message 
sequence.

My questions are:
1. Why couldn't UNI-N independently send ServiceConfig Msg#3 to UNI-C,
   instead of following ServiceConfig Msg#2?
2. If Msg#3 MUST follow Msg#2, how does UNI-N know when Msg#2 exchange
   is complete, because there could be more than one Msg#2?

Thanks.

Robin

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