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RE: [EFM] OAM developing Geoff's observation.




Bob,

This largely depends on the requirements.  What kind of OAM&P traffic
requires
guaranteed delivery?  And also what kind of intelligence we require from
the
CPE and still maintain the low cost.  If you can tell me what is the
requirements
for each of the OAM&P traffic listed below:  (This is the minimum list
of 
OAM&P traffic I can think of)

1. Reset command 
2. Link failure/status
3. CPE registration or inventory (The former is the action and the later
is
the results).
4. Connectivity diagnose (ping etc) - This is divided into link
connectivity which
can be covered by 2 and subscriber line connectivity.  
5. Subscriber activation and deactivation (or generally referred to as
provisioning)
6. CPE maintanence (upgrade, backup ...)
7. Accounting information on the subscriber line - optional since some
of
the accounting data is actually collected at the aggregated box.
  
This will be really helpful for the vendors that are building these
equipements
to justify for the need or the size of a dedicated OAM&P channel.

-faye

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Barrett [mailto:bob.barrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 5:36 AM
To: Geoff Thompson; fkittred@xxxxxxx
Cc: stds-802-3-efm@ieee.org
Subject: RE: [EFM] OAM developing Geoff's observation.



I'm late in on this thread, so there may be a similar comment further up
my
in-box from somebody else.

Geoff's observation is pretty fundamental:

> My expectation is that the demarcation device will probably end
> up with an IP address in order to support:
>          SNMP for OA&M
>          Firewall services for the subscriber
>
> (That issue is, of course, beyond our scope)

The logical conclusion of this observation is that EFM should make the
OAM
at layer two as simplistic as possible fulfilling only the basic
requirements i.e. limited number of managed objects and limited echo (L2
ping) test. Vendors can then leverage ietf standards (note: the users
tends
to like these) to implement ietf style 'standard' management functions.
Isn't that what we all have in mind anyway :-).

The open question then is will the service provider market accept
in-band
management i.e. management IP frames mixed with user traffic, or is
there a
real requirement for a side-band channel. If EFM does need to include a
side
band channel then all that it needs to be is a communications channel
(bit
stream), probably squeezed in the preamble or the IPG (we can debate
that
choice for a while). Vendors can then implement either a standards based
method of comms over that channel or do there own thing. Personally I
would
expect vendors to choose something like IP over PPP for this.

I can wrap this all up in a presentation for the next meeting if
required.

(Just seen Geoff's comment on this in response to Roy's thread; as a
vendor
we will probably want to support both in-band and side-band,
standardised or
not, but we would prefer a standard for side band as part of EFM).

Bob Barrett

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-3-efm@majordomo.ieee.org
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-3-efm@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of Geoff
> Thompson
> Sent: 04 September 2001 23:03
> To: fkittred@xxxxxxx
> Cc: stds-802-3-efm@ieee.org
> Subject: Re: [EFM] OAM loop back / echo server function
>
>
>
> Fletcher-
>
> I don't think this is a stupid question.
> I don't think we need an IP level PING
> A L2 ping would do, perhaps even better, the demarc would look for
PING
> type and then just swap SA & DA.
> My expectation is that the demarcation device will need a MAC address
> My expectation is that the demarcation device will probably end
> up with an
> IP address in order to support:
>          SNMP for OA&M
>          Firewall services for the subscriber
>
> (That issue is, of course, beyond our scope)
>
> Geoff
>
> At 03:47 PM 9/4/01 -0400, Fletcher E Kittredge wrote:
> >On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:11:54 -0700  "Geoff Thompson" wrote:
> > > As I have said before, I do believe that we will need a
> demarcation device
> > > that has the capability to host OA&M functions.
> > > We have talked about "loop back" from this point in the network.
> > > Let us forevermore make that "PING"
> >
> >Geoff;
> >
> >         Apologies if this is a stupid question, but does PING in
this
> >context mean the utility that sends an IP ICMP ECHO REQUEST packet
and
> >listens for an ECHO REPLY packet?  If so, am I correct in thinking
this
> >means the demarcation device would require an IP address?
> >
> >thanks!
> >fletcher
>