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Re: WG review: Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks (l2vpn)

2003-06-18 23:15:07
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If you use LDP, it is NOT a routing protocol.  The specific mode of 
use
(targeted LDP) is already described in RFC 3036.  The FECs are
different, but
the FEC TLV was defined in such a way as to be extensible.

And when you want to do this inter-domain? Everything else seems to
have made it's way into BGP so I think that Pekkas concerns are 
valid...

That's only because the IETF hasn't made security easy enough, light 
enough, or
something.  Now some people use the argument that everything should go 
into BGP
because "opening another port into the provider network is a security 
breach."
Why is port 646 (LDP) any more insecure than port 179 (BGP)?

Well, I think it's more to it than this. BGP doesn't traverse 
firewalls, at least not in most cases. I think the reason more and more 
is being put into these protocols is because "they are there". It's 
simply easier than thinking about the implications of doing this.

not
necessarily go down well with you either, but think of MPLS as a
logical FR.
Providers do not want to change their infrastructure, e.g., replace a
FR cloud
with an ATM cloud, then with SONET or GigE.  That's mega-expensive.  
By
abstracting the L2 using MPLS, they can provide the L2VPN service
without
wholesale infrastructure replacement.

Most of these providers have bought what their vendor told them to 
buy,
but let's not go into that here.


Somehow I didn't think this comment would go unnoticed.  ;-)


Sheesh!  No, let's go there.  You're talking about my potential 
customers, and I
want to know if they really are so dense that I shouldn't have been 
spending all
this time working on a protocol - I could have just given them a 
couple of
high-priced tin cans and a piece of string.

Notice that I have been one of those customers. Actually one of the 
largest outside the US. I have spent more time listening and talking to 
vendors on these issues than I like to think about. What struck me was 
how often vendors would come and tell me that provider Y bought this, 
so this should work for you to. When you then asked the vendors to go 
the economics of these decisions, and also the economics of the 
alternatives - you get everything from false and fabricated figures to 
vendors who simply can not answer. I actually remember very few 
occasions  when I got a full explanation of why a certain technology 
would help me and where I could see the benefits.

Who exactly the IETF is going to be providing protocols for?  For 
protocols such
as these, it is the providers who deploy them.  You claim that most of 
the
providers have little or no discernment.  Let's give credit to the 
providers.
There are a large number of them who know what they are doing.  Many 
of them
participate in the standards.

Providers go with technology that is a) cheap b) hight margin. Did 
providers start selling MPLS based VPNs (L2 & L3) because the demand 
was so huge? No, some providers and vendors created the demand. For 
some providers this works very well and fitted the strategy.

Yes, there are providers who work on standards in the IETF. 
Unfortunately I think they are way to few though.

- - kurtis -

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