Technical Summary
This document describes a pseudowire mechanism that is used to
transport a packet service over an MPLS PSN is the case where the
client LSR and the server PE are co-resident in the same equipment.
This pseudowire mechanism may be used to carry all of the required
layer 2 and layer 3 protocols between the pair of client LSRs.
Working Group Summary
This draft presents a number of alternative encapsulations for a
generic packet PW that were investigated by the authors and
discussed in the WG over a period of time (these are documented
in the appendix), and reaches a conclusion about which one to
use. However, an alternative approach was also proposed to the
PWE3 working group by a different set of authors in a separate
draft, and progressed over a period of a number of IETFs. A
consensus call was conducted by the chairs to try to reach
agreement on how to proceed. This resulted in the Ethernet PW
encapsulation approach, specified in this document, being
adopted. WG consensus on the alternative approach could not
be reached at that time.
Since this draft documents a new way to use an existing
encapsulation, the draft was originally progressed as a BCP rather
than on the standards track. However, it was subsequently noted in
AD review that the document contains protocol definitions and
makes IANA requests, and therefore it is now proposed on the
standards track.
Document Quality
The draft uses an existing Ethernet PW type that is widely
deployed. As well as being used for interconnecting Ethernet
attachment circuits, there are implementations that directly
terminate the Ethernet PW on an IP interface (e.g., on a VRF)
which represents a subset of the proposal in the draft. However,
direct termination on an LSR, as shown in the draft, is not known
to be widely implemented/deployed yet, although such as model
has been requested by service providers.
Personnel
Matthew Bocci (Matthew.Bocci@alcatel-lucent.com) is the Document Shepherd
Adrian Farrel (adrian@olddog.co.uk) is the Responsible AD