The MPLS WG Archive

[Kathleen Nichols <nichols@packetdesign.com>]

Chatur sharp wrote:
> 
...
> 
> Anyhow phrases like :
> "  The EF traffic SHOULD receive this rate
>    independent of the intensity of any other traffic
>    attempting to transit the node.  "
> 
> Do not make any sense, till the time you specify what
> is the meaning of transit. 

The meaning of transit (from www.dictionary.com):

tran·sit (trnst, -zt) 
 n. Abbr. t. 

        1.The act of passing over, across, or through; passage. 
        2.Conveyance of people or goods from one place to another,
especially on a local public transportation system. 
        3.A transition or change, as to a spiritual existence at death. 
        4.Astronomy. 
             a.The passage of a celestial body across the observer's
meridian. 
             b.The passage of a smaller celestial body or its shadow
across the disk of a larger celestial body. 
        5.A surveying instrument similar to a theodolite that measures
horizontal and vertical angles. 

Definition 1 is what we had in mind. I would have thought the others
didn't fit.

> Does it mean that traffic
> coming on interface i and going out of interface j
> will have this commitment? 

It is difficult to tell if you mean by the above: "coming
in on a specific interface i and going out of a specific
interface j" or "coming in on some arbitrary interface i
and going out on some arbitrary interface j".

> 
> IMHO, DIFFSERV should provide an option to let
> PHBs be associated to destination addresses or egress
> points through a network if needed. It will still
> allow
> diffserv to work in the manner it is working today and
> 
> will also enable SPs to provide garuntees which are
> required by some of the real-time applications
> 

Again, it is difficult to tell if you mean "associating"
in the sense of applying a classifier on that destination
address and when there is a match, treating it with that
PHB (which is, of course, possible) of if you mean you
want to specifically take all the packets marked for a particular
per-node forwarding behavior and ensure that they egress the
network at a particular point. This is clearly something in
the domain of the control plane, not the forwarding path and
would require that the IGP make a decision based on the DSCP
it seems. This is the wrong working group for that.

> Finally, I think the DIFFSERV-MPLS approach is
> the right approach as it really takes into account
> need of all kinds of traffic rather than just the
> traditional IP services.

Then it sounds like your needs are being met. MPLS is a control
plane approach using diffserv mechanisms in the FP. If you like
that approach, it isn't clear what you want this WG to do.


	Kathie