[Chapter-delegates] Statement relating to today’s ITU-T SG15 MPLS development decision

[Franck Martin]

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----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Baker" <fred at cisco.com>
> To: "Christopher Wilkinson" <cw at christopherwilkinson.eu>
> Cc: "ECC Council" <ecc-council at isoc-ecc.org>, "Russ Housley" <housley at vigilsec.com>, "ISOC Chapter Delegates"
> <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> Sent: Friday, 25 February, 2011 8:13:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Statement relating to today’s ITU-T SG15 MPLS development decision
> On Feb 25, 2011, at 3:31 PM, Christopher Wilkinson wrote:
> 
> > Good evening:
> >
> > Before taking this matter up with relevant policy makers, could we
> > please have a definition and explanation of what is MPLS and OAM.
> 
> MPLS is a virtual circuit switch technology similar in some respects
> to ATM or Frame relay, used by service providers to traffic engineer
> their networks or for provider-provisioned VPNs. IP traffic (v4 and
> v6) is carried inside it. It was originally developed in the IETF, and
> has been an area of ITU activity - often differing solutions to the
> same issues - for much of that time.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprotocol_Label_Switching
> 
> "OAM" stands for Operations, Administration, and Maintenance; it comes
> down to the set of tools that assist an operator in managing their
> network and diagnosing when it's not right. This includes everything
> from ping and traceroute to SNMP, NetConf, and a variety of other
> management tools. As noted in the ISOC article, there is an agreement
> between the IETF and the ITU regarding this; they're free to work on
> what they like, as is the IETF, but there is fundamental agreement to
> provide mutually compatible technologies.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OA%26M
> 
> > What was the IETF position in the ITU-T SG15? Who was in the
> > meetings? What reports were filed to ITU and to ISOC? Where are
> > they?
> > In what respects are the ITU and IETF implementations of MPLS-OAM
> > incompatible?
> 
> I don't know that the IETF or ISOC comments in non-technical fora on
> technical disputes or disagreements; if we did, you would get a steady
> diet of "Alice and Bob disagree; oh, the worked it out; but now Carol
> brought up a point". The disagreement between ITU T-MPLS and IETF
> MPLS-TP has been ongoing for a couple of years, and while there have
> been bumps, seemed to be on the road to resolution. It appears that
> ITU SG15 has taken a unilateral step that is quite unfortunate.
> 
> > Why are we told about a problem in this area, apparently only after
> > the event?
> 
> Discussions have been ongoing for a long time. The decision by the ITU
> to unilaterally decide to develop non-interoperable technology is
> recent. For the record, I as an IETF participant am just finding out
> about it now as well.

This is not new, there were always issue with IETF and ITU about MPLS. Last time it was solved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS-TP

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022808-ietf-itu-mpls.html

Apparently this time it was not.