Subject: Opinions on draft-rosen-mpls-in-ip-or-gre-00.txt ?

From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 23:57:39 -0800

draft-rosen-mpls-in-ip-or-gre-00.txt defines how to encapsulate MPLS
packets (including the complete label stack) in IP or GRE packets. As
far as I know the reason behind is to make MPLS-based VPNs work across
non-MPLS regions. My thinking is if you need IP tunneling, why not
just send an IP packet in the first place, and if one needs VPN encap
in GRE, just define how the demux field is encoded, don't go to
the potential IP/MPLS/IP/MPLS/etc mess... Opinions?

-- 
Alex

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From: Tony Przygienda <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:46:29 +0100

>the potential IP/MPLS/IP/MPLS/etc mess... Opinions?

 I can think of possible scenarios where you want to preserve the label 
(e.g. extending
a PE-CE link through a GRE tunnel through an IP-only device, if you 
loose the label, you may
loose the capability to
demux the frame). On the other hand one can argue that if a stripped 
label leads to de-muxing,
you can de-mux an IP frame immediately into multiple tunnels (one per 
de-muxing decision).

yes, the possible stackings will easily lead to a mess but it could be a 
life-saving kludge in some
deployments

    just my 2c

    -- tony

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From: Acee Lindem <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:46:32 -0500

> life-saving kludge in some

I spoke to my colleague, Rahul Aggarwal, on this topic and he was in 
agreement. It is very conveinent to use the RFC 2547 MPLS label mechanisms 
for BGP advertisement and VPN demux even if there is not in fact an LSP. 

Thanks, 
Acee

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From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:08:41 -0500

Acee, Tony, thanks!
This one will be discussed at the MPLS WG
meeting, let's see what people say.
-- 
Alex