Re: CE-based VPLS

[Loa Andersson <[e-mail]>]

WG, Kireeti and Cheng-Yin,

Speaking as chair:

It is the opinion of the wg chairs and the ADs that the CE-based
is out of charter.

Speaking as a "terminology police":

CE is not a piece of equipment, it is the functionality needed to handle
the customer side of the vpls (or vpn in genral). Nor is PE a piece of
equipment, it is the functionality needed to handle the provider
side of the vpls (or vpn in general). It is conceivable that the CE and
PE could be allocated to the same box, or to any number of boxes. Don't
ask me why you would like to do that.


/Loa


Kireeti Kompella wrote:
> Hi Cheng-Lin,
> 
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Cheng-Yin Lee wrote:
> 
> 
>>The L2VPN charter states
>>"The WG is responsible for standardization of the following solutions:
>>1. Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS)--L2 service that emulates LAN
>>  across an IP and an MPLS-enabled IP network, allowing standard
>>  Ethernet devices communicate with each other as if they were
>>  connected to a common LAN segment.
>>...
>>"
>>
>>This is the service that CE-based VPLS (where CE is provisioned by
>>provider) provides.
> 
> 
> It would be interesting (but ultimately irrelevant) to understand how
> you made the leap from "service that emulates LAN" to "CE-based VPLS
> ... where CE is provisioned by provider".  The charter does not say who
> provisions the VPLS, although since L2VPN emerged from PPVPN, it seems
> logical that the provider provisions it.  Furthermore, the charter
> doesn't mention "CE-based".
> 
> If by "CE", you mean (as in rfc2547bis) a device owned, operated and
> managed by the customer, then "CE provisioned by the provider" is an
> oxymoron.  If you mean something else, it would be useful to define it;
> and furthermore, to read the decoupled VPLS and the H-VPLS drafts.
> 
> 
>>So I think CE-based VPLS is within the scope of the L2VPN
>>charter (unless the charter is changed to explicitly exclude CE-based
>>VPLS).
> 
> 
> The parenthetical statement is not a bad idea.  Chairs?  ADs?
> 
> 
>>I believe the following drafts do not currently allow standard Ethernet
>>devices to communicate with each other as if they were connected to a
>>common LAN segment:
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ppvpn-vpls-ldp-00.txt
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ppvpn-vpls-bgp-00.txt
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-radoaca-ppvpn-gvpls-02.txt
>>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-shah-ppvpn-ipls-02.txt
> 
> 
> There is an existence proof that most (if not all) of the above _do_
> in fact allow standard Ethernet devices to communicate with each other
> as if they were on a LAN.  So, your belief does not jive with reality.
> Step into any number of vendor or provider labs for proof.
> 
> If there are corner cases where the "VPLS" in the above drafts fails
> to emulate a LAN perfectly, please communicate that to the group.
> This would be productive, and help the group understand whether the
> failure was systemic or the artifact of particular implementations,
> and thus guide further standards development.
> 
> Kireeti.
> 
> 
> 


-- 
/Loa

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