Subject: RE: Draft charter for L2VPN - IPLS & ARP Mediation

From: "Hamid Ould-Brahim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 16:47:22 -0400

Giles,

> 
> IPLS meets the requirement for which I originally envisaged VPLS being
> useful (i.e. interconnecting IP routers or hosts) and does this more
> efficiently than VPLS.  I would be reluctant to use VPLS to 
> interconnect
> switches, as that exposes the SP to the customer network's MAC
> addresses, but I can see why this might be attractive to customers in
> the metropolitan area at least.
> 

What do you suggest as a service to interconnect switches
besides using VPLS? (particularly across IP/MPLS network).

(your observation seems similar to l3vpns where the SP is
exposed to customer routes which seems okay for some 
customers)...

Hamid.

---

From: Giles Heron <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 May 2003 23:49:07 +0000

> besides using VPLS? (particularly across IP/MPLS network).

I don't think there is much alternative to VPLS for this (other than
using meshes of draft-martini VCs, and either running spanning tree over
the top or implementing split horizon in the CE devices).

> exposed to customer routes which seems okay for some 

Agreed.  But of course there tend to be more MAC addresses than prefixes
in the average network.

And, just to be pedantic, the scaling problem with 2547 or VPLS isn't a
question of what the customer is okay with, but rather of what the
provider can support.

Giles

-- 
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Giles Heron    Principal Network Architect    PacketExchange Ltd.
ph: +44 7880 506185              "if you build it they will yawn"
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