The MPLS WG Archive

["Arun M. Thomas" <arunt@propulsionnetworks.com>]

This question is focused more at actual use of MPLs rather than at what the
specs state about how it should be used.  Please let me know if this is an
inappropriate forum for this question.

I've been trying to understand the requirements as far as bridging and MPLS
from a practical perspective.  Suppose, for example, that the following LSR
exists on an Ethernet network:

	(Ingress) A --> B --> C (Egress)

For any particular packet traversing this LSR, is it reasonable to expect
that it will only touch three hosts enroute from A to C, or is it possible
that there could be a multitude of intervening hosts?  e.g. Could the actual
path the packet traverses look like:

	A --> 1 --> 2 --> B --> 3 --> C

where 1, 2, and 3 represent switches performing L2 bridging?

Thanks in advance for any comments.  They're much appreciated!

-AMT