Technical Summary:
A Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is used to interconnect
systems across a wide-area or metropolitan-area network, making it
appear that they are on a private LAN. The systems which are
interconnected may themselves be LAN switches. If, however, they
are IP hosts or IP routers, certain simplifications to the operation
of the VPLS are possible. We call this simplified type of VPLS an
"IP-only LAN Service" (IPLS). In an IPLS, as in a VPLS, LAN
interfaces are run in promiscuous mode, and frames are forwarded
based on their destination MAC addresses. However, the maintenance
of the MAC forwarding tables is done via signaling, rather than via
the MAC address learning procedures specified in [IEEE 802.1D].
This draft specifies the protocol extensions and procedures for
support of the IPLS service.
The original intent was to provide an alternate solution to VPLS
for those PE routers that were not capable of learning MAC address
through data plane. This became a non-issue with newer hardware.
The concepts put forth by this draft are still valuable and are
adopted in one form or other by newer work such as Ethernet VPN
in L2VPN Working Group and possible data center applications. At
this point, no further action is planned to update this document
and is published simply as a historic record of the ideas.
Working Group Summary:
This document is an L2VPN Working Group document, and has been reviewed in
the working group through multiple iterations of the draft. It was considered to be an
informational draft, with the last few iterations of the draft now cleaning up references.
There was considerable debate during and after the WG last call which resulted in
new revisions being issued to resolve various comments.
After discussion with the serving AD, the document was changed to be Historic. Thus
it presents a record of the working group discussions. The revised I-D was also
shown to the WG to check for any concerns.
Document Quality:
The document provides a clear and concise set of requirements for IPLS - broken
down into different requirement areas. As a requirements draft there is no protocol
implement.
Personnel:
Document Shepherd: Andrew McLachlan (amclachl@cisco.com)
Area Director: Adrian Farrel (adrian@olddog.co.uk)