Re: [Ioam] Internal WG Review: In-situ OAM (ioam)

["Adrian Farrel" <[e-mail]>]

[snip]

> > I have not thought it through, but I am wondering what distinguishes the
> > packet types you list (IPv4, IPv6, VXLAN-GPE, LISP, NSH, SRv6, Geneve) from
> > other packet types, the obvious one being MPLS. Not that I am at all keen on
> > trying to get this into the simple fast forwarders we use for MPLS. In other words
> > what is the generic class of packets you are targetting?
> 
> Encapsulations?

I *think* I read this as Carlos saying...

We want to define a layer-independent, encapsulation-independent generic data format for carrying any OAM information in user data packets. We expect this to be useful in the following list of forwarding encapsulations <insert list> but the actual use of and encapsulation of this generic data format will be worked on in coordination with the working groups responsible for those encapsulations.

This, to me, seems similar to the approach taken by the SFC working group. The generic format is agnostic to (ignorant of?) both the encapsulation and the type of data carried.

In a sense, of course, it means that it is possible that the generic data format will be invented, but never used (because no group responsible for a forwarding encapsulation thinks IOAM is appropriate or desirable). Although I suspect that Carlos and frank have ambitions in this area :-)

I would certainly like the charter to be more clear about what is being built (the final paragraph does cover some of this, but the generic nature is not as obvious as it should be).

Adrian