MPLS OAM & the IETF

[Scott Bradner <[e-mail]>]

subject:   MPLS OAM & the IETF

The result of the MPLS OAM BOF in Salt Lake City has been confirmed over
the last few days in the mailing list thread "draft-bonica-tunneltrace-02."


That result was and is that there are at least two quite different views on
the type of OAM tools and technologies needed for MPLS networks.  

My reading of the groups is that one group, who are mostly concerned with
the transport of IP over MPLS, generally feel that tools approximating the
traditional "ping" and "traceroute" tools used on IP networks are
sufficient.  A second group seems to feel that those tools do not provide
enough of a view of the service a customer is getting to be sufficient and
that tools approximating traditional telephone system OAM tools are needed
to get the complete picture.

Meanwhile, the ITU-T has been working in this area and has a document in
their equivalent of the IETF Last-Call. Brian Moore, the ITU-T Study Group
13 chair, kindly arraigned for the ITU-T document (known as Y.1711) to be
put on an ftp site so interested IETF folk can take a look at what they
have done.  The URL is 
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com13/ip/sg13-ietf-ftp.html (IETF folk
have to register to use the FTP site.)

It seems to me that there are two options on what we (the IETF) could do at
this point.

0/ you think I do not understand the issue

1/ split the tasks:  The IETF focus on the ping/traceroute mechanisms and
cede to the ITU-T work on the more telco-like OAM.  In this option the IETF
would publish draft-ohta-mpls-label-value-01.txt as an RFC and assign an
MPLS reserved label value for use by the ITU-T to identify Y.1711
information.

2/ The IETF work on a suite of technologies ranging from the
ping/traceroute-like mechanisms to the more telephone system OAM ones.  The
IETF could try to figure out how to do this in conjunction with the ITU,
though it is a bit late for that considering the state of Y.1711, or be in
competition with the ITU-T.  

So - please indicate your opinion on how the IETF should proceed

1 - split the tasks between the IETF and the ITU-T
2 - IETF produce standards track documents covering both areas
  2a - trying to work with the ITU-T to produce common technology
  2b - in competition with the ITU-T

In any case, it would be good to provide feedback to the ITU-T on Y.1711 if
you see anything that looks broken.


Scott (with sub-ip AD hat on)