[trill] FGL "safe" mode in fine labels

Thomas Narten <narten@us.ibm.com> Wed, 20 March 2013 18:59 UTC

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From: Thomas Narten <narten@us.ibm.com>
To: trill@ietf.org
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:59:18 -0400
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Subject: [trill] FGL "safe" mode in fine labels
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I spent some time rereading the current fine labels draft
(draft-ietf-trill-fine-labeling-05.txt) and the January email thread
on "safe mode" (Re: [trill] Explaining three options for upgrading to
FGL (fine-grained-labeling)).

But I'm still not sure I understand...

What exactly is "FGL-safe mode"? I see the definition in the document,
but it doesn't explain at a high level what this mode is intended to
do. I.e., what the principles are. I.e., what does it mean for a TRILL
campus (as opposed to an individual RB)?

Is "safe" mode just another word for "FGL capable", i.e., the
implementation is capable of fully supporting FGL?

Or is there a broader definition for "capable"? (Some other messages
seem to suggest this) If so, what is the difference?

Finally, what is the migration path from VL to FGL in a real
network?

Back in January, Radia said
(http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/trill/current/msg05632.html):

> So...again...the migration phases in option 2 are
> 1) VL-only (today's deployment), then
> 2) A mixture of VL and FGL-safe, until
> 3) EVERYone upgraded to FGL-safe, then
> 4) FGL-links can be introduced.

>From the above, I conclude that there is no FGL traffic and no actual
usage of FGL capabilities until step 4.  That makes sense to me, but
this is not explained clearly in the current draft. Indeed, it's
pretty easy to conclude from the draft that an RB operates in both FGL
and VL mode at the same time from the way the behavior is described
(often talking about an RB having some links doing FGL and some doing
VL).

PS, to me "FGL safe" doesn't seem like the right term. Wouldn't "FGL
capable" be more accurate, and then distinguish between an
implementation fully supporting FGL (i.e., is "capable") vs. that
capability being enabled operationally? That would seem to more
clearly reflect what (I think) is the intended behavior.

Thomas