Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 17:10:06 -0700 To: Himanshu , Anil Rijsinghani 13-Jun-1996 1704 From: Richard Hausman Subject: RE: 802.1Q VLAN PAR backwards interoperability Cc: mjs@nsd.3com.com, p8021@hepnrc.hep.net Mick, These are good comments from all three of you. I agree that the PARs are useful in bounding the problems we seek to solve. I also think bounding the VLAN project is mandatory. Still, I cannot argue with Anil - we must openly determine to do the "right thing". Ideas generated in our .1Q development have changed what we expect from .1p, and many of us have begun to see overlap. We would do well to gain common ground on this high level relating "p" and "Q". This high level subject was also included as a subject of John Hart's 802.1p/D3 ballot response. Some of what John had to say sounded very good to me - multicast groups and VLANs treated as two particular types of "domains." But when this led to a conclusion to use GARP for VLAN distribution, I was less sure. (Perhaps the 802.1Q tags would better lend themselves to learning and ageing in the manner 802.1D treats MAC addresses, rather than using GARP or a like protocol for announcing membership. How will overlapping domains of differing types relate to multiple spanning trees, if we find need for such in huge flat fabrics of the future?) I expect more needs to be said and discussed, but I particularly note John's suggestions we might want to combine 802.1p and 802.1Q. I think it would be very useful for you to directly address this "charter", or "text of the PARs", issue in Twente. Perhaps you, or someone, could lead a discussion early in the meetings revisiting the .1p and .1Q PARs, to sort out whether it is our intention to actually do things differently than those PARs state. Thanks, /Richard [attached: P802.1-96/149, -96/147, and -96/144 (see d96/d96n149.txt, d96/d96n147.txt, and d96/d96n144.txt)] =============================== Richard Hausman Cisco WBU/DCD Engineering 408 527-3042; FAX: 510 252-0915 richardh@cisco.com ===============================