Thread Links Date Links
Thread Prev Thread Next Thread Index Date Prev Date Next Date Index

Re: [EFM] RE: Pause frame usage in transport networks




> Shahram Davari wrote:
> > Hi Siamak,
> >
> > What should a customer do if he wants to check the connectivity between
> > his sites? You need to be able to pass OAM frames through the core.

Sharam,

I think you are confusing link-level OAM with user level network management 
stuff.

Link layer OAM frames must not be acessible by the customer for several 
reasons; in short, it would open the network for various types of exploits, 
and it would do no good for the customer. The best course of action is to 
make sure that the customer will never need to know that OAM was there - in 
other words, it has to be completely transparent from the user side. Note 
that this is one of the few things that are true for both packet based and 
leased services.

As for the real applications today, in packet networks it is common to rely on 
IP-level connectivity checks, using a tool such as 'ping' or SNMP queries; if 
you're not using IP, there are equivalents for other L3 protocols such as 
IPX, etc, that work in similar ways.


Carlos Ribeiro
cribeiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx