The MPLS WG Archive

["Arun M. Thomas" <AMammenT@yahoo.com>]

Just a comment....  As Eric mentioned, it seems to be a matter of
definition.  In order for the tunneling idea to work, the router, while it
may not have an MPLS daemon running to handle label exchange, still needs to
be capable of detecting MPLS labelled packets.  As soon as that is true, I
don't really think it's valid to say the router is a non-mpls router.
(That's my definition.... If what was meant originally by "non-mpls router"
was simply that no handling of labels is ongoing, then all that's written
below continues to be valid.

-AMT

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mpls@UU.NET [mailto:owner-mpls@UU.NET]On Behalf Of Hongwei
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 8:58 AM
To: sganguly@opulentsystems.com
Cc: mpls@UU.NET
Subject: RE:



THX for discussion :).  Yes, tunnel may be another idea, but it will more
complicate.  The mpls LERs should be policed to be aware of tunnels, and if
the LERs around the non-mpls island want to share mpls knowledge (such as
labels and TTLs),  every LER has to know which LER across the island is the
next hop. The non-mpls router is a bottleneck if it has to be routed
through.

--hongwei

-----Original Message-----
From: Sukanta Ganguly [mailto:sganguly@opulentsystems.com]
Sent: 09 October 2001 15:57
To: Hongwei
Subject: RE:


Depends on the vendor implemetation. The packet can either tunneled so that
it retains its MPLS tag via a non-MPLS network or the MPLS tag(s) can be
completely removed from the packet in which if the packet travels through a
MPLS island further then new tags have to be inserted and new LSP's have to
be used. In the latter case the sender's MPLS knowledge which as originally
present in the packet is lost.

SG