[sfc] Progression of OAM work in the SFC WG

[James Guichard <[e-mail]>]

Hi WG:

Having reviewed all of the OAM related documents in our WG, the chairs would like to provide a few comments to hopefully generate discussion and forward progress of this work:

1) The chairs have reviewed the O bit definition in RFC 8300.  That definition is at best open to interpretation and therefore incomplete.  For example, the clear intention is only to mark packets which are intended for SFC OAM at the SFC service layer.  But that is not what the current text says.  There is also, unfortunately, ambiguity as to what constitutes an OAM packet.  So it is reasonable for documents to update 8300 to clarify the exact applicability and action for the O-bit.

2) However, related to point 1), we can't have multiple documents updating the definition differently.  As such, the authors of the SFC iOAM draft and the SFC multi-layer-oam draft need to come together and figure out what the clarification is for the definition of that bit. We do not believe as chairs that either of these documents can move forward from the WG until such clarity has been reached.

3) Related to the SFC iOAM, we need a clear definition of iOAM.  There seem to be differences between the definitions in published RFCs, the usage (which is not a definition) in the SFC draft, and the various ippm drafts.  Any such definition will need to be vetted with the ippm working group.

Again, it would be good if members of the working group beyond the two author teams spoke up about their readings of the documents, and their understandings of what we need.

Yours,
Jim and Joel