Network Working Group                                      Praveen Muley 
Internet Draft                                         Mustapha Aissaoui 
Intended Status: Standards Track                           Matthew Bocci 
Expires: March 2009                                  Pranjal Kumar Dutta  
                                                           Marc Lasserre 
                                                          Alcatel-Lucent  
                                                          
                                                         Jonathan Newton 
                                                        Cable & Wireless 
                                                                         
                                                             Olen Stokes 
                                                        Extreme Networks 
                                                                         
                                                       Hamid Ould-Brahim 
                                                                  Nortel 
                                                                         
                                                            Luca Martini 
                                                      Cisco Systems Inc. 
                                                                         
                                                             Giles Heron 
                                                           Thomas Nadeau 
                                                                      BT 
 
                                    
                                                      September 30, 2008 
                                      
               Preferential Forwarding Status bit definition 
                   draft-ietf-pwe3-redundancy-bit-01.txt 


Status of this Memo 

    

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   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 

   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 30, 2009. 

Abstract 

   This document describes a mechanism for standby status signaling of 
   redundant PWs between their termination points. A set of redundant 
   PWs is configured between PE nodes in SS-PW applications, or between 
   T-PE nodes in MS-PW applications.  

   In order for the PE/T-PE nodes to indicate the preferred PW path to 
   forward to one another, a new status bit is needed to indicate a 
   preferential forwarding status of active or standby for each PW in 
   the redundancy set.  

   In addition, a second status bit is defined to allow peer PE/T-PE 
   nodes to coordinate a switchover operation of the PW/MS-PW path. 

    

Conventions used in this document 

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [1]. 

Table of Contents 

    
   1. Introduction...................................................3 
   2. Motivation and Scope...........................................4 
   3. Terminology....................................................7 
   4. Modes of Operation.............................................7 
      4.1. Independent Mode:.........................................8 
      4.2. Master/Slave Mode:........................................9 
   5. Signaling procedures of PW State Transition...................10 
      5.1. PW Standby notification procedures in Independent mode...10 
      5.2. PW Standby notification procedures in Master/Slave mode..11 
         5.2.1. PW State Machine....................................12 
      5.3. Coordination of PW Path Switchover.......................14 
         5.3.1. Procedures at the requesting endpoint...............15 
         5.3.2. Procedures at the receiving endpoint................16 
   6. Applicability and Backward Compatibility......................17 
   7. Security Considerations.......................................17 
   8. IANA Considerations...........................................17 
 
 
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      8.1. Status Code for PW Preferential Forwarding Status........17 
      8.2. Status Code for PW Request Switchover Status.............18 
   9. Acknowledgments...............................................18 
   10. References...................................................18 
      10.1. Normative References....................................18 
      10.2. Informative References..................................18 
   11. Appendix A - Applications of PW Redundancy Procedures........19 
      11.1. One Multi-homed CE with single SS-PW redundancy.........19 
      11.2. Multiple Multi-homed CEs with single SS-PW redundancy...21 
      11.3. Multi-homed CE with MS-PW redundancy....................22 
      11.4. Single Homed CE with MS-PW redundancy...................24 
      11.5. PW redundancy between H-VPLS MTU-s and PE-rs............25 
   Author's Addresses...............................................27 
   Full Copyright Statement.........................................28 
   Intellectual Property Statement..................................28 
   Acknowledgment...................................................29 
    
1. Introduction 

   In single-segment PW (SS-PW) services such as VPWS and VPLS, 
   protection for the PW is provided by the PSN layer. This may be an 
   RSVP-TE LSP with a FRR backup and/or an end-to-end backup LSP. There 
   are however applications where PSN protection is insufficient to 
   fully protect the PWE3 service and pseudowire redundancy is required. 
   These scenarios are described in the PW redundancy and framework 
   document [5]. 

   In a VPWS service, this is used to provide access AC redundancy to a 
   CE device which is dual-homed to target PE nodes. In a HVPLS service, 
   this is used to provide access PW redundancy to the MTU device which 
   is dual-homed to two PE-r devices. PSN protection mechanisms cannot 
   protect against failure of the target PE node or the failure of the 
   remote AC. These scenarios rely on a set of two or more pseudowires 
   to protect a given PWE3 service. Only one of these pseudowires is 
   used by the PEs to forward user traffic on at any given time. This is 
   the active PW. The other PWs in the set are considered standby and 
   are not used for forwarding unless they become active. In essence, 
   this provides a 1:1 or N:1 PW protection with the possibility of 
   multi-homing. 

   In order to support access AC or access PW redundancy, at least one 
   of the PEs on which a PW terminates must be different from that on 
   which the primary PW terminates, as described in [5]. Figure 1 
   illustrates an application of Active and Standby PWs.  

    

 
 
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        |<-------------- Emulated Service ---------------->| 
         |                                                  | 
         |          |<------- Pseudo Wire ------>|          | 
         |          |                            |          | 
         |          |    |<-- PSN Tunnels-->|    |          | 
         |          V    V                  V    V          | 
         V    AC    +----+                  +----+     AC   V 
   +-----+    |     | PE1|==================|    |     |    +-----+ 
   |     |----------|....|...PW1.(active)...|....|----------|     | 
   |     |          |    |==================|    |          | CE2 | 
   | CE1 |          +----+                  |PE2 |          |     | 
   |     |          +----+                  |    |          +-----+ 
   |     |          |    |==================|    | 
   |     |----------|....|...PW2.(standby)..|    | 
   +-----+    |     | PE3|==================|    | 
              AC    +----+                  +----+ 
 
 
                  Figure 1: Reference Model for PW Redundancy 

   In multi-segment PW (MS-PW) applications, multiple MS-PWs are 
   configured between a pair of T-PE nodes. The paths of these MS-PWs 
   are diverse and are switched at different S-PE nodes. Only one of 
   these MS-PWs is active at any given time. The others are put in 
   standby. In these applications, 1:1 or N:1 PW redundancy is important 
   to provide resilience in the event of failure of S-PE node since PSN 
   protection mechanisms cannot, and the desire is that MS-PW based 
   services have resiliency similar to that of SS-PW  based services.  

   This document specifies a new PW status bit to indicate the 
   preferential forwarding status of the PW for the purpose of notifying 
   the remote PE of the active/standby state of each PW in the 
   redundancy set. This status bit is different from the operational 
   status bits already defined in the PWE3 control protocol [2]. In 
   addition, a second status bit is defined to allow peer PE/T-PE nodes 
   to coordinate a switchover operation of the PW/MS-PW path.  

2. Motivation and Scope    

   The PWE3 control protocol [2] defines the following status codes in 
   PW the status TLV to indicate the operational state for an AC and a 
   PW: 

   0x00000000 - Pseudowire forwarding (clear all failures) 

   0x00000001 - Pseudowire Not Forwarding 
 
 
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   0x00000002 - Local Attachment Circuit (ingress) Receive Fault 

   0x00000004 - Local Attachment Circuit (egress) Transmit Fault 

   0x00000008 - Local PSN-facing PW (ingress) Receive Fault 

   0x00000010 - Local PSN-facing PW (egress) Transmit Fault 

   The scenarios defined in [5] allow the provisioning of a primary PW 
   and one or many secondary PWs in the same VPWS or VPLS service. 

   A PE node makes a selection of which PW to activate at any given time 
   for the purpose of forwarding user packets. This selection takes into 
   account the local operational state of the PW as well as the remote 
   operational state of the PW as indicated in the status bits of the PW 
   it received from the peer PE node.  

   In the absence of faults, all PWs are operationally UP both locally 
   and remotely and a PE node needs to select a single PW to forward 
   user packets to. This is referred to as the active PW. All other PWs 
   will be in standby and must not be used to forward user packets.  

   In order for both ends of the service to select the same PW for 
   forwarding user packets, it is proposed that a PE node communicates a 
   new status bit to indicate the forwarding state of a PW to its peer 
   PE node.  

   In addition, a second status bit is defined to allow peer PE/T-PE 
   nodes to coordinate a switchover operation of the PW/MS-PW path if 
   required by the application. 

   Together, the mechanisms described in this document achieve the 
   following PW protection capabilities: 

      a. A mandatory 1:1 PW protection with a single active PW and one 
         standby PW. An active PW can forward data traffic and control 
         plane traffic, such as OAM packets. A standby PW does not 
         carry data traffic. 

      b. An optional N:1 PW protection scheme with a single active PW 
         and N standby PWs. 

      c. An independent mode of operation in which each PW endpoint 
         node uses its own local rule to select which PW it intends to 
         activate at any given time and advertises it to the remote 
         endpoints. Only a PW which is operationally UP and which 
         indicated Active status bit locally and remotely is in the 
 
 
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         Active state and can be used to forward data packets. This is 
         described in Section 4.1. . 

      d. An optional mechanism to allow PW endpoints to coordinate the 
         switchover to a given PW path by using an explicit 
         request/acknowledgment switchover procedure. This mechanism is 
         complementary to the Independent mode of operation and is 
         described in Section 5.3. . This mechanism can be invoked 
         manually by the user, effectively providing a manual 
         switchover capability. It can also be invoked automatically to 
         resolve a situation where the PW endpoints could not match the 
         two directions of the PW. 

      e. A Master/Slave mode in which one PW endpoint, the Master 
         endpoint, selects and dictates to the other endpoint(s), the 
         Slave endpoint(s), which PW to activate. This is described in 
         Section 4.2. . 

      f. Multi-homing of a CE device to two or more PE/T-PE nodes. 

      g. Multi-homing of a PE/T-PE node to two or more PE/T-PE nodes.  

      h. Optionally, implementations can add support for precedence 
         parameter to govern the selection of a PW when more than one 
         PW qualify for the active state, as defined in sections 4.1. 
         and 4.2. The PW with the lowest precedence value has the 
         highest priority. This is a local configuration parameter to 
         the PW endpoint. 

      i. Optionally, implementations can designate by configuration one 
         PW in the 1:1 or N:1 set as a primary PW and the remaining as 
         secondary PWs. If more than one PW qualify for the active 
         state, as defined in sections 4.1. and 4.2. , a PE/T-PE node 
         selects the primary PW in preference to a secondary PW. In 
         other words, the primary PW has implicitly the lowest 
         precedence value. Furthermore, implementations can provide the 
         option to revert to the primary PW immediately after it comes 
         back up or after the expiration of a delay. The PE/T-PE node 
         can use the PW precedence parameter to select a secondary PW 
         among many that qualify for active state. 

   Appendix A shows how the mechanisms described in this document are 
   used to achieve the desired protection behavior for the scenarios 
   described in the PW redundancy and framework document [5]. 



 
 
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3. Terminology 

   UP PW:   A PW which has been configured (label mapping exchanged 
            between PEs) and is not in any of the PW defect states 
            specified in [2]. Such a PW is available for forwarding 
            traffic. 

   DOWN PW: A PW that has either not been fully configured or has been 
            and is in any of the PW defect states specified in [2]. 
            Such a PW is not available for forwarding traffic.  

   Active PW:  An UP PW used for forwarding user and OAM traffic. 

   Standby PW: An UP PW that is not used for forwarding user traffic, 
           but may forward OAM traffic. 

   Primary PW: the PW which a PW endpoint activates in preference to any 
           other PW when more than one PW qualify for active state. 
           When the primary PW comes back up after a failure and 
           qualifies for active state, the PW endpoint always reverts 
           to it. The designation of Primary is performed by local 
           configuration at the PW endpoint. 

   Secondary PW: when it qualifies for active state, a Secondary PW is 
           only selected if no Primary PW is configured or if the 
           configured primary PW does not qualify for active state 
           (e.g., is operationally Down). By default, a PW in a 
           redundancy PW set is considered secondary. There is no 
           Revertive mechanism among secondary PWs. 

   PW Precedence: this is a configuration parameter that dictates the 
           order in which a PW endpoint activates a PW among multiple 
           PWs which qualify for active state. The lowest the 
           precedence value, the highest is the priority of selecting 
           the PW. 

   PW Endpoint: A PE where a PW terminates on an NSP e.g. A SS-PW PE, an 
           MS-PW T-PE, or a VPLS MTU or PE-r. 

4. Modes of Operation    

   There are two modes of operation for the use of the PW preferential 
   forwarding status bits:  

   o  Independent mode  

   o  Master/Slave mode. 
 
 
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4.1. Independent Mode: 

   PW endpoint nodes independently select which PW they intend to make 
   active and which PWs they intend to make standby. They advertise the 
   corresponding Active/Standby forwarding state for each PW. Each PW 
   endpoint compares local and remote status and uses the PW that is 
   operationally UP at both endpoints and that shows Active states at 
   both the local and remote endpoint.  

   If more than one PW qualify for the Active state, and the PW endpoint 
   implements the precedence parameter, it must use the PW with the 
   lowest precedence value. The precedence parameter is optional. 

   If more than one PW qualify for the Active state, and the PW endpoint 
   implements the primary/secondary procedures, it must use the primary 
   PW in preference to all secondary PWs. If a primary PW is not 
   available, it must use the secondary PW with the lowest precedence 
   value. If the primary PW becomes available, a PW endpoint may revert 
   to it immediately or after the expiration of a configurable delay. 
   These primary/secondary procedures are optional. 

   In steady state with consistent configuration, a PE will always find 
   an Active PW. However, it is possible that due to a misconfiguration, 
   such a PW is not found. In the event that an active PW is not found, 
   a management indication should be generated. If a management 
   indication for failure to find an active PW was generated and an 
   active PW is subsequently found, a management indication should be 
   generated, effectively clearing the previous failure indication. 
   Additionally, a PE may use the optional request switchover procedures 
   described in Section 5.3.  to have both PE nodes switch to a common 
   PW path. 

   There may also be transient conditions where endpoints do not share a 
   common view of the active/standby state of the PWs. This could be 
   caused by propagation delay of the T-LDP status messages between 
   endpoints. In this case, the behavior of the receiving endpoint is 
   outside the scope of this document. 

   Thus, in this mode of operation, the following definition of Active 
   and Standby PW states apply: 

   o  Active State                                                  

   A PW is considered to be in Active state when the PW labels are 
   exchanged between its two endpoints in control plane, and the status 
   bits exchanged between the endpoints indicate the PW is UP and Active 

 
 
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   at both endpoints. In this state user traffic can flow over the PW in 
   both directions. 

   o  Standby State 

   A PW is considered to be in Standby state when the PW labels are 
   exchanged between its two endpoints in the control plane, but the 
   status bits exchanged indicate the PW is in Standby state at one or 
   both endpoints. In this state the endpoints MUST NOT forward data 
   traffic over the PW but MAY allow PW OAM packets, e.g., VCCV, to be 
   sent and received in order to test the liveliness of standby PWs. If 
   the PW is a spoke in H-VPLS, any MAC addresses learned via the PW 
   should be flushed when it transitions to Standby state. 

4.2. Master/Slave Mode: 

   One endpoint node of the redundant set of PWs is designated the 
   Master and is responsible for selecting which PW both endpoints must 
   use to forward user traffic. 

   The Master indicates the forwarding state in the Active/Standby 
   status bit. The other endpoint node, the Slave, MUST follow the 
   decision of the Master node based on the received status bits.   

   One endpoint of the PW, the Master, actively selects which PW to 
   activate and uses it for forwarding user traffic. This status is 
   indicated to the Slave node by setting the preferential forwarding 
   status bit in the status bit TLV to Active. It does not forward user 
   traffic to any other of the PW's in the redundancy set to the slave 
   node and indicates this by setting the preferential forwarding status 
   bit in the status bit TLV to Standby for those PWs. The master node 
   MUST ignore any Active/Standby status bits received from the Slave 
   nodes.  

   If more than one PW qualify for the Active state, and the PW endpoint 
   implements the precedence parameter, it must use the PW with the 
   lowest precedence value. The precedence parameter is optional. 

   If more than one PW qualify for the Active state, and the PW endpoint 
   implements the primary/secondary procedures, it must use the primary 
   PW in preference to all secondary PWs. If a primary PW is not 
   available, it must use the secondary PW with the lowest precedence 
   value. If the primary PW becomes available, a PW endpoint may revert 
   to it immediately or after the expiration of a configurable delay. 
   These primary/secondary procedures are optional. The Slave 
   endpoint(s) are required to act on the status bits received from the 
   Master. When the received status bit transitions from Active to 
 
 
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   Standby, a Slave node MUST stop forwarding over the previously active 
   PW. When the received status bit transitions from Standby to Active 
   for a given PW, the Slave node MUST start forwarding user traffic 
   over this PW.  

   There is a single PE/T-PE Master PW endpoint node and one or many 
   PE/T-PE PW endpoint Slave nodes. The assignment of Master/Slave roles 
   to the PW endpoints is performed by local configuration. Note that 
   the above behavior assumes correct configuration of the Master and 
   Slave endpoints. This document does not define a mechanism to detect 
   errors in the configuration.  

   In this mode of operation, the following definition of Active and 
   Standby PW states apply: 

   o  Active State                                                  

   A PW is considered to be in Active state when the PW labels are 
   exchanged between its two endpoints in control plane, and the status 
   bits exchanged between the endpoints indicate the PW is UP at both 
   endpoints, and the forwarding status sent by the Master endpoint 
   indicates Active state. In this state user traffic can flow over the 
   PW in both directions. 

   o  Standby State 

   A PW is considered to be in Standby state when the PW labels are 
   exchanged between its two endpoints in the control plane, but the 
   status bits sent by the Master endpoint indicate the PW is in Standby 
   state. In this state the endpoints MUST NOT forward data traffic over 
   the PW but MAY allow PW OAM packets, e.g., VCCV, to be sent and 
   received. If the PW is a spoke in H-VPLS, any MAC addresses learned 
   via the PW should be flushed when it transitions to Standby state. 

5. Signaling procedures of PW State Transition 

   This section describes the extensions proposed and the processing 
   rules for the extensions. It defines a new "PW preferential 
   forwarding" bit in Status Code that is to be used with PW Status TLV 
   proposed in RFC 4447 [2]. The PW preferential forwarding bit when set 
   is used to signal Standby state of PW by one terminating point to the 
   other end. 

5.1. PW Standby notification procedures in Independent mode 

   PW endpoint nodes independently select which PW they intend to use 
   for forwarding, and which PWs they do not, based on the specific 
 
 
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   application. They advertise the corresponding Active/Standby 
   forwarding state for each PW. An active forwarding state is indicated 
   by clearing the Active/Standby status bit in the PW status TLV. A 
   standby forwarding state is indicated by setting the Active/Standby 
   status bit in the PW status TLV. This advertisement occurs in both 
   the initial label mapping message and in a subsequent notification 
   message when the forwarding state transitions as a result of a state 
   change in the specific application. 

   Each endpoint compares the updated local and remote status and 
   effectively activates the PW which is operationally UP at both 
   endpoints and which shows both local Active and remote Active states.  

   When a PW is in active state, the endpoints can forward both user 
   packets and OAM packets.  

   When a PW is in standby state, the endpoints MUST NOT forward user 
   packets over the PW but MAY forward PW OAM packets. 

   For MS-PWs, S-PEs MUST relay the PW status notification containing 
   both the operational and preferential forwarding status bits between 
   ingress and egress PWs. 

5.2. PW Standby notification procedures in Master/Slave mode 

   Whenever the Master PW endpoint "actively" selects or deselects a PW 
   for forwarding user traffic at its end, it explicitly notifies the 
   event to the remote Slave endpoint.  The slave endpoint carries out 
   the corresponding action on receiving the PW state change 
   notification.  

   If the PW preferential forwarding bit in PW Status TLV received by 
   the slave is set, it indicates that the PW at the Master end is not 
   used for forwarding and is thus kept in the Standby state, the PW 
   MUST also not be used for forwarding at Slave endpoint. Clearance of 
   the PW Preferential Forwarding bit in PW Status TLV indicates that 
   the PW at the Master endpoint is used for forwarding and is in Active 
   state, and the receiving Slave endpoint MUST activate the PW if it 
   was previously not used for forwarding.   

   This mechanism is RECOMMENDED to be used with PWs signaled in groups 
   with common group-id in PWid FEC Element or Grouping TLV in 
   Generalized PWid FEC Element defined in [2]. When PWs are provisioned 
   with such grouping a termination point sends a single "wildcard" 
   Notification message using a PW FEC TLV with only the group ID set, 
   to denote this change in status for all affected PW connections. This 
   status message contains either the PW FEC TLV with only the Group ID 
 
 
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   set, or else it contains the PW Generalized FEC TLV with only the PW 
   Grouping ID TLV. As mentioned in [2], the Group ID field of the PWid 
   FEC Element, or the PW Grouping TLV used with the Generalized ID FEC 
   Element, can be used to send status notification for all arbitrary 
   set of PWs. For example, Group-ID in PWiD may be used to send 
   wildcard status notification message for a group of PWs when PWid FEC 
   element is used for PW state signaling. When Generalized PWiD FEC 
   Element defined is used in PW state signaling, PW Grouping TLV may be 
   used for wildcard status notification for a group of PWs. 

   For MS-PWs, S-PEs MUST relay the PW status notification containing 
   both the operational and preferential forwarding status bits between 
   ingress and egress PW segments. 

5.2.1. PW State Machine  

   It is convenient to describe the PW state change behavior in terms of 
   a state machine. The PW state machine is explained in detail in the 
   two defined states and the behavior is presented as a state 
   transition table. The same state machine is seamlessly applicable to 
   PW Groups.  

    

                     PW State Transition State Table 

    

      STATE         EVENT                                   NEW STATE 

       

      ACTIVE        PW put in Standby (master)              STANDBY 

                    Action: Transmit PW preferential forwarding bit set 

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      STANDBY   

                    bit set    

                    Action: Stop forwarding over PW  

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      ACTIVE 
 
 
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                    bit set but bit not supported  

                    Action: None 

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      ACTIVE       

                    bit clear  

                    Action: None. 

    

    

      STANDBY       PW activated (master)                   ACTIVE 

                    Action: Transmit PW preferential forwarding bit   
                    clear 

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      ACTIVE               

                    bit clear  

                    Action: Activate PW  

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      STANDBY              

                    bit clear but bit not supported 

                    Action: None 

    

                    Receive PW preferential forwarding      STANDBY  

                    bit set 

                    Action: No action 



 
 
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5.3. Coordination of PW Path Switchover 

   There are PW redundancy applications which require that PE/T-PE nodes 
   coordinate the switchover to a PW/MS-PW path such that both endpoints 
   will be forwarding over the same path at any given time. One such 
   application of redundant MS-PW paths is identified in [5]. Multiple 
   MS-PWs are configured between a pair of T-PE nodes. The paths of 
   these MS-PWs are diverse and are switched at different S-PE nodes. 
   Only one of these MS-PWs is active at any given time. The others are 
   put in standby. The endpoints follow the Independent Mode procedures 
   to activate the PW which is UP and advertised Active 'preferential 
   forwarding' status bit by both endpoints. 

   The trigger for sending a request to switchover of the path of the 
   MS-PW by one endpoint can be due to an operational event, example a 
   failure, which caused the endpoints to not be able to match the 
   Active 'preferential forwarding' status bit. The other trigger is the 
   execution of an administrative maintenance operation by the network 
   operator in order to move the traffic away from the node/links to be 
   serviced. 

   Unlike the case of a Master/Slave mode of operation, the endpoint 
   requesting the switchover requires explicit acknowledgement from the 
   peer endpoint that the request is honored before it switches the path 
   of the PW. Furthermore, any of the endpoints can make the request to 
   switchover. 

   A new status bit is proposed to have a PE/T-PE node request the 
   switchover to its peer. This bit will be referred to as 'request PW 
   switchover' status bit. The 'preferential forwarding' status bit 
   continues to be used by each endpoint to indicate its current local 
   settings of the active/standby state of each PW in the redundancy 
   set. In other words, like in the Independent mode, it indicates to 
   the far-end which of the PWs is being used to forward packets and 
   which is being put in standby. It can thus be used as a way for the 
   far-end to acknowledge the requested switchover operation. 

   The following procedures must be followed by both endpoints of a 
   PW/MS-PW to coordinate the switchover of the PW/MS-PW path. These 
   procedures are enabled only when the user configured the use of the 
   'request switchover' status bit at both endpoints.  

   S-PEs nodes MUST relay the PW status notification containing the 
   operational status bits, as well as the 'preferential forwarding' and 
   'request switchover' status bits between ingress and egress PW 
   segments. 

 
 
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5.3.1. Procedures at the requesting endpoint  

   a. The requesting endpoint sends a Status TLV in the LDP 
      notification message with the 'request switchover' bit set on the 
      PW it desires to switch to.  

   b. The endpoint does not activate forwarding on that PW/MS-PW at 
      this point in time. It may however enable receiving on that 
      PW/MS-PW. Thus the 'preferential forwarding' status bit still 
      reflects the currently used PW path. 

   c. The requesting endpoint starts a timer while waiting the remote 
      endpoint to acknowledge the request. 

   d. If while waiting for the acknowledgment, the requesting endpoint 
      receives a request from its peer to switchover to the same or a 
      different PW path, it must perform the following: 

            i. If its system IP address is higher than that of the peer, 
               this endpoint ignores the request and continues to wait 
               for the acknowledgement from its peer. 

           ii. If its system IP address is lower than that of its peer, 
               it aborts the timer and immediately starts the 
               procedures of the receiving endpoint in Section 5.3.2.  

   e.    If while waiting for the acknowledgment, the requesting 
      endpoint receives a status notification message from its peer 
      with the 'preferential forwarding' status bit cleared in the 
      requested PW and set in all other PWs, it must treat this as an 
      explicit acknowledgment of the  request and must perform the 
      following:  

            i. Abort the timer.  

           ii. Activate the PW path.   

          iii. Send an update status notification message with the 
               'preferential forwarding' status bit clear on the newly 
               active PW and set in all other PWs in the redudancy set, 
               and the 'request switchover' bit reset in all PWs in the 
               redundancy set..  

   f. If while waiting for the acknowledgment, the requesting endpoint 
      detects that the requested PW went into operational Down state 
      locally, and could use an alternate PW which is operationally UP, 
      it must perform the following: 
 
 
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            i. Abort the timer. 

           ii. Issue a new request to switchover to the alternate PW. 

          iii. Re-start the timer. 

   g. If while waiting for the acknowledgment, the requesting endpoint 
      detects that the requested PW went into operational Down state 
      locally, and could not use an alternate PW which is operationally 
      UP, it must perform the following: 

            i. Abort the timer. 

           ii. Send an update status notification message with the 
               'preferential forwarding' status bit unchanged and the 
               'request switchover' bit reset in all PWs in the 
               redundancy set. 

   h. If while waiting for the acknowledgment, the timer expired, the 
      requesting endpoint assumes the request is rejected and will 
      either issue a new request or do nothing. 

   i. If the requesting node receives the acknowledgment after the 
      request expired, it will treat it as if the remote endpoint 
      unilaterally switched the path of the PW without issuing a 
      request. In that case, it may issue a new request and follow the 
      requesting endpoint procedures to synchronize transmit and 
      receive paths of the PW. 

5.3.2. Procedures at the receiving endpoint 

   a. Upon receiving a status notification message with the 'request 
      switchover' bit set on a PW different from the currently active 
      one, and the requested PW is operationally UP, the receiving 
      endpoint must perform the following: 

           i. Activate the PW.  

          ii. Send an update status notification message with the 
               'preferential forwarding' status bit clear on the newly 
               active PW and set in all other PWs in the redudancy set, 
               and the 'request switchover' bit reset in all PWs in the 
               redundancy set. 

   b. Upon receiving a status notification message with the 'request 
      switchover' bit set on a PW different from the currently active 

 
 
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      one, and the requested PW is operationally Down, the receiving 
      endpoint must perform the following: 

           i. Ignore the request and do nothing. 

6. Applicability and Backward Compatibility 

   The mechanism defined in this document is OPTIONAL and is applicable 
   to PWE3 applications where standby state signaling of PW or PW group 
   is required.  

   A PE implementation that uses the mechanisms described in this 
   document MUST negotiate the use of PW status TLV between its T-LDP 
   peers as per RFC 4447 [2]. If PW Status TLV is found to be not 
   supported by either of its endpoint after status negotiation 
   procedures, then the mechanisms specified in this document cannot be 
   used. 

   A PE implementation compliant to RFC 4447 [2], and which does not 
   support the generation or processing of the 'preferential forwarding' 
   status bit or of  the 'request switchover'status bit, will not set 
   these bits in the status bits transmitted to a peer PE and will not 
   examine them in the received status bits from a peer PE. The 
   mechanisms specified in this document cannot be used. 

7. Security Considerations  

   This document uses the LDP extensions that are needed for protecting 
   pseudo-wires. It will have the same security properties as in the 
   PWE3 control protocol [2]. 

8. IANA Considerations   
    

   We have defined the following codes for the pseudo-wire redundancy 
   application.  
    

8.1. Status Code for PW Preferential Forwarding Status  
    

   0x00000020 When the bit is set, it indicates "PW forwarding  

              standby".  

              When the bit is cleared, it indicates "PW forwarding  

 
 
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              active". 

8.2. Status Code for PW Request Switchover Status  
    

   0x00000040  When the bit is set, it represents "Request switchover to 
               this PW". 

               When the bit is cleared, it represents no specific     
               action. 

9. Acknowledgments  

   The authors would like to thank Vach Kompella, Kendall Harvey, 
   Tiberiu Grigoriu, John Rigby, Prashanth Ishwar, Neil Hart, Kajal 
   Saha, Florin Balus, Philippe Niger, Dave McDysan, and Roman 
   Krzanowski for their valuable comments and suggestions. 

10. References  

10.1. Normative References 

   [1]   Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement 
         Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 

   [2]   Martini, L., et al., "Pseudowire Setup and Maintenance using 
         LDP", RFC 4447, April 2006.  

   [3]   Kompella,V., Lasserrre, M. , et al., "Virtual Private LAN 
         Service (VPLS) Using LDP Signalling", RFC 4762, January 2007. 

10.2. Informative References 

   [4]   Martini, L., et al., "Segmented Pseudo Wire", draft-ietf-pwe3-
         segmented-pw-09.txt, January 2009. 

   [5]   Muley, P., et al., "Pseudowire (PW) Redundancy", draft-ietf-
         pwe3-redundancy-01.txt", March 2009.  

   [6]   Bryant, S., et al., " Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) 
         Architecture", RFC 3985, March 2005 

    

    

    
 
 
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11. Appendix A - Applications of PW Redundancy Procedures 

   This section shows how the mechanisms described in this document are 
   used to achieve the desired protection behavior for the scenarios 
   described in the PW redundancy requirements and framework document 
   [5]. 

11.1. One Multi-homed CE with single SS-PW redundancy 

   The following figure illustrates an application of single segment 
   pseudo-wire redundancy. 

         |<-------------- Emulated Service ---------------->|  
         |                                                  |  
         |          |<------- Pseudo Wire ------>|          |  
         |          |                            |          |  
         |          |    |<-- PSN Tunnels-->|    |          |  
         |          V    V                  V    V          |  
         V    AC    +----+                  +----+     AC   V  
   +-----+    |     | PE1|==================|    |     |    +-----+ 
   |     |----------|....|...PW1.(active)...|....|----------|     | 
   |     |          |    |==================|    |          | CE2 | 
   | CE1 |          +----+                  |PE2 |          |     | 
   |     |          +----+                  |    |          +-----+ 
   |     |          |    |==================|    |        
   |     |----------|....|...PW2.(standby)..|    |        
   +-----+    |     | PE3|==================|    |        
              AC    +----+                  +----+        
     
           Figure 2 Multi-homed CE with single SS-PW redundancy 

   The application in Figure 2 makes use of the Independent mode of 
   operation. 

   CE1 is dual homed to PE1 and to PE3 by attachment circuits. The 
   method for dual-homing of CE1 to PE1 and to PE3 nodes, and the used 
   protocols such as Multi-chassis Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG), is 
   outside the scope of this document. 

   In normal operation, PE1 and PE3 will advertise "Active" and 
   "Standby" 'preferential forwarding' status bit respectively to PE2. 
   This status reflects the forwarding state of the two AC's to CE1 as 
   determined by the AC dual-homing protocol used. PE2 advertises 
   'preferential forwarding' status bit of "Active" on both PW1 and PW2 
   since the AC to CE2 is single homed. As both the local and remote 
   operational and preferential forwarding status for PW1 are UP and 
   Active, traffic is forwarded over PW1 in both directions. 
 
 
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   On failure of the AC between CE1 and PE1, the forwarding state of the 
   AC on PE3 transitions to Active. For example the MC-LAG control 
   protocol changes the link state on PE3 to active. PE3 then announces 
   the newly changed 'preferential forwarding' status bit of "active" to 
   PE2. PE1 will advertise a PW status notification message indicating 
   that the AC between CE1 and PE1 is operationally down. PE2 matches 
   the local and remote preferential forwarding status of "active" and 
   operational status "Up" and select PW2 as the new active pseudo-wire 
   to send traffic to. 

   On failure of PE1 node, PE3 will detect it and will transition the 
   forwarding state of its AC to Active. The method by which PE3 detects 
   that PE1 is down is outside the scope of this document. PE3 then 
   announces the newly changed 'preferential forwarding' status bit of 
   "active" to PE2. PE3 and PE2 match the local and remote preferential 
   forwarding status of "active" and operational status "Up" and select 
   PW2 as the new active pseudo-wire to send traffic to. Note that PE2 
   may have detected that the PW to PE1 went down via T-LDP Hello 
   timeout or via other means. However, it will not be able to forward 
   user traffic until it received the updated status bit from PE3. 

   Note in this example, the receipt of the operational status of the AC 
   on the CE1-PE1 link is normally sufficient to have PE2 switch the 
   path to PW2. However, the operator may want to trigger the switchover 
   of the path of the PW for administrative reasons, i.e., maintenance, 
   and thus the use of the 'preferential forwarding' status bit is 
   required to notify PE2 to trigger the switchover.  

   Note that the primary/secondary procedures do not apply in this case 
   as the PW Active/Standby status is driven by the AC forwarding state 
   as determined by the AC dual-homing protocol used. 
















 
 
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11.2. Multiple Multi-homed CEs with single SS-PW redundancy 

             |<-------------- Emulated Service ---------------->|  
             |                                                  |  
             |          |<------- Pseudo Wire ------>|          |  
             |          |                            |          |  
             |          |    |<-- PSN Tunnels-->|    |          |  
             |          V    V                  V    V          |  
             V    AC    +----+                  +----+     AC   V  
       +-----+    |     |....|.......PW1........|....|     |    +-----+  
       |     |----------| PE1|......   .........| PE3|----------|     |  
       | CE1 |          +----+      \ /  PW3    +----+          | CE2 |  
       |     |          +----+       X          +----+          |     | 
       |     |          |    |....../ \..PW4....|    |          |     |  
       |     |----------| PE2|                  | PE4|--------- |     |  
       +-----+    |     |....|.....PW2..........|....|     |    +-----+  
                  AC    +----+                  +----+    AC       
     
    
      Figure 3 Multiple Multi-homed CEs with single SS-PW redundancy  

   The application in Figure 3 makes use of the Independent mode of 
   operation. 

   CE1 is dual-homed to PE1 and PE2. CE2 is dual-homed PE3 and PE4. The 
   method for dual-homing and the used protocols such as Multi-chassis 
   Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG) are outside the scope of this 
   document.  Note that the PSN tunnels are not shown in this figure for 
   clarity. However, it can be assumed that each of the PWs shown is 
   encapsulated in a separate PSN tunnel. 

   PE1 advertises the preferential status "active" and operational 
   status "UP" for pseudo-wires PW1 and PW4 connected to PE3 and PE4. 
   This status reflects the forwarding state of the AC attached to PE1. 
   PE2 advertises preferential status "standby" where as operational 
   status "UP" for pseudo-wires PW2 and PW3 to PE3 and PE4. PE3 
   advertises preferential status "standby" where as operational status 
   "UP" for pseudo-wires PW1 and PW3 to PE1 and PE2. PE4 advertise the 
   preferential status "active" and operational status "UP" for pseudo-
   wires PW2 and PW4 to PE2 and PE1 respectively. The method of 
   deriving Active/Standby status of the AC is outside the scope of 
   this document. In case of MC-LAG it is derived by the Link 
   Aggregation Control protocol (LACP) negotiation. Thus by matching 
   the local and remote preferential forwarding status of "active" and 
   operational status "Up" of pseudo-wire, the PE nodes determine which 
   PW should be in the Active state. In this case it is PW4 that will 
   be selected.  
 
 
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   On failure of the AC between CE1 and PE1, the forwarding state of 
   the AC on PE2 is changed to Active. For example the MC-LAG control 
   protocol changes the link state on PE2 to active. PE2 then announces 
   the newly changed 'preferential forwarding' status bit of "active" 
   to PE3 and PE4. PE1 will advertise a PW status notification message 
   indicating that the AC between CE1 and PE1 is operationally down. 
   PE2 and PE4 match the local and remote preferential forwarding 
   status of "active" and operational status "Up" and select PW2 as the 
   new active pseudo-wire to send traffic to. 


   On failure of PE1 node, PE2 will detect it and will transition the 
   forwarding state of its AC to Active. The method by which PE2 
   detects that PE1 is down is outside the scope of this document. PE2 
   then announces the newly changed 'preferential forwarding' status 
   bit of "active" to PE3 and PE4. PE2 and PE4 match the local and 
   remote preferential forwarding status of "active" and operational 
   status "Up" and select PW2 as the new active pseudo-wire to send 
   traffic to. Note that PE3 and PE4 may have detected that the PW to 
   PE1 went down via T-LDP Hello timeout or via other means. However, 
   they will not be able to forward user traffic until they received 
   the updated status bit from PE2. 


   Because each dual-homing algorithm running on the two node sets, 
   i.e., {CE1, PE1, PE2} and {CE2, PE3, PE4}, selects the active AC 
   independently, there is a need to signal the active status of the AC 
   such that the PE nodes can select a common active PW path for end-to-
   end forwarding between CE1 and CE2 as per the procedures in the 
   independent mode. 

   Note that the primary/secondary procedures do not apply in this use 
   case as the Active/Standby status is driven by the AC forwarding 
   state as determined by the AC dual-homing protocol used. 

11.3. Multi-homed CE with MS-PW redundancy 

   The following figure illustrates an application of multi-segment 
   pseudo-wire redundancy. 








 
 
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           Native   |<-----------Pseudo Wire----------->|  Native   
           Service  |                                   |  Service   
            (AC)    |    |<-PSN1-->|     |<-PSN2-->|    |   (AC)   
              |     V    V         V     V         V    V     |   
              |     +-----+         +-----+         +-----+        
       +----+ |     |T-PE1|=========|S-PE1|=========|T-PE2|   |   +----+ 
       |    |-------|......PW1-Seg1.......|PW1-Seg2.......|-------|    | 
       |    |       |     |=========|     |=========|     |       |    | 
       | CE1|       +-----+         +-----+         +-----+       |    | 
       |    |         |.|           +-----+         +-----+       | CE2| 
       |    |         |.|===========|     |=========|     |       |    | 
       |    |         |.....PW2-Seg1......|.PW2-Seg2......|-------|    | 
       +----+         |=============|S-PE2|=========|T-PE4|   |   +----+ 
                                    +-----+         +-----+   AC        
     
    

             Figure 4 Multi-homed CE with MS-PW redundancy 

   The application in Figure 4 makes use of the Independent mode of 
   operation. 

   CE2 is dual-homed to T-PE2 and T-PE4. PW1 and PW2 are used to extend 
   the resilient connectivity all the way to T-PE1. PW1 has two segments 
   and is active pseudo-wire while PW2 has two segments and is a standby 
   pseudo-wire. This application requires support for MS-PW with 
   segments of the same type as described in [4].  

   The operation in this case is the same as in the case of SS-PW as 
   described in Section 11.1. . The only difference is that the S-PE 
   nodes need to relay the PW status notification containing both the 
   operational and forwarding status to the T-PE nodes. 















 
 
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11.4. Single Homed CE with MS-PW redundancy 

   The following is an application of the independent mode of operation 
   along with the optional request switchover procedures in order to 
   provide N:1 PW protection. A revertive behavior to a primary PW is 
   shown as an example of configuring and using the primary/secondary 
   procedures. 
    
           Native   |<------------Pseudo Wire------------>|  Native   
           Service  |                                     |  Service   
            (AC)    |     |<-PSN1-->|     |<-PSN2-->|     |  (AC)   
              |     V     V         V     V         V     V   |   
              |     +-----+         +-----+         +-----+   |   
       +----+ |     |T-PE1|=========|S-PE1|=========|T-PE2|   |   +----+   
       |    |-------|......PW1-Seg1.......|.PW1-Seg2......|-------|    |   
       | CE1|       |     |=========|     |=========|     |       | CE2| 
       |    |       +-----+         +-----+         +-----+       |    |   
       +----+        |.||.|                          |.||.|       +----+  
                     |.||.|         +-----+          |.||.|              
                     |.||.|=========|     |========== .||.| 
                     |.||...PW2-Seg1......|.PW2-Seg2...||.|              
                     |.| ===========|S-PE2|============ |.|        
                     |.|            +-----+             |.|              
                     |.|============+-----+============= .|             
                     |.....PW3-Seg1.|     | PW3-Seg2......|              
                      ==============|S-PE3|===============              
                                    |     |                              
                                    +-----+                             
    
    Figure 5 Single homed CE with multi-segment pseudo-wire redundancy 

   CE1 is connected to PE1 in provider Edge 1 and CE2 to PE2 in provider 
   edge 2 respectively. There are three segmented PWs. A primary PW, 
   PW1, is switched at S-PE1. A primary PW has the highest precedence. A 
   secondary PW, PW2, which is switched at S-PE2 and has a precedence of 
   1. Finally, another secondary PW, PW3, is switched at S-PE3 and has a 
   precedence of 2. The precedence is locally configured at the 
   endpoints of the PW, i.e., T-PE1 and T-PE2. 

   T-PE1 and T-PE2 will select the PW they intend to activate based on 
   their local and remote operational state as well as the local 
   primary/precedence configuration. In this case, they will both 
   advertise preferential forwarding' status bit of "active" on PW1 and 
   of "standby" on PW2 and PW3. Assuming all PWs are operationally UP, 
   T-PE1 and T-PE2 will use PW1 to forward user packets.  


 
 
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   If PW1 fails, then the T-PE detecting the failure will send a status 
   notification to the remote T-PE with a "PW Down" bit set as well as 
   the 'preferential forwarding' status bit set on PW1. It will also 
   clear 'preferential forwarding' status bit on PW2 as it is the next 
   it has the next lowest precedence value. T-PE2 will also perform the 
   same steps as soon as it is informed of the failure of PW1. Both T-PE 
   nodes will perform a match on the 'preferential forwarding' status  
   of "active" and operational status of "Up" and will use PW2 to 
   forward user packets.  

   However this does not guarantee that paths of the PW are synchronized 
   at all times. This may be due to a mismatch of the configuration of 
   the PW priority in each T-PE. This may also be due to a failure which 
   caused the endpoints to not be able to match the Active 'preferential 
   forwarding' status bit and operational status bits. In this case, T-
   PE1 and/or T-PE2 can invoke the optional request 
   switchover/acknowledgement procedures to synchronize the PW paths in 
   both directions.   

   The trigger for sending a request to switchover can also be the 
   execution of an administrative maintenance operation by the network 
   operator in order to move the traffic away from the T-PE/S-PE nodes 
   /links to be serviced. 

   In case the request switchover is sent by both endpoints 
   simultaneously, both T-PEs send status notification with the newly 
   selected PW with 'request switchover' bit set, waiting for response 
   from the other endpoint. In such situation, the T-PE with greater 
   system address request is given precedence. This helps in 
   synchronizing paths in event of mismatch of priority configuration as 
   well. 

11.5. PW redundancy between H-VPLS MTU-s and PE-rs 

   Following figure illustrates the application of use of PW redundancy 
   in H-VPLS for the purpose of dual-homing an MTU-s node to PE nodes 
   using PW spokes. This application makes use of the Master/Slave mode 
   of operation. 









 
 
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                         |<-PSN1-->|     |<-PSN2-->|       
                         V         V     V         V        
                   +-----+         +--------+           
                   |MTU-s|=========|PE1-rs  |========  
                   |..Active PW group....   | H-VPLS-core 
                   |     |=========|        |========= 
                   +-----+         +--------+           
                      |.|                            
                      |.|           +--------+                      
                      |.|===========|        |==========  
                      |...Standby PW group   |.H-VPLS-core              
                       =============|  PE2-rs|==========        
                                    +--------+   
                            
               Figure 6 Multi-homed MTU-s in H-VPLS core 

   MTU-s is dual homed to PE1-rs and PE2-rs. The primary spoke PWs from 
   MTU-s are connected to PE1-rs while the secondary PWs are connected 
   to PE2. PE1-rs and PE2-rs are connected to H-VPLS core on the other 
   side of network. MTU-s communicates to PE1-rs and PE2-rs the 
   forwarding status of its member PWs for a set of VSIs having common 
   status Active/Standby. It may be signaled using PW grouping with 
   common group-id in PWid FEC Element or Grouping TLV in Generalized 
   PWid FEC Element as defined in [2] to scale better.  MTU-s derives 
   the status of the PWs based on local policy configuration. In this 
   example, the primary/secondary procedures are used but this can be 
   based on any other policy.  

   Whenever MTU-s performs a switchover, it sends a wildcard 
   Notification Message to PE2-rs for the Standby PW group containing PW 
   Status TLV with PW Standby bit cleared. On receiving the notification 
   PE-2rs unblocks all member PWs identified by the PW group and state 
   of PW group changes from Standby to Active. All procedures described 
   in Section 5.2. are applicable. 

   The use of the 'preferential forwarding' status bit in Master/Slave 
   mode is similar to Topology Change Notification in RSTP controlled 
   IEEE Ethernet Bridges but is restricted over a single hop. When these 
   procedures are implemented, PE-rs devices are aware of switchovers at 
   MTU-s and could generate MAC Withdraw Messages to trigger MAC 
   flushing within the H-VPLS full mesh. By default, MTU-s devices 
   should still trigger MAC Withdraw messages as currently defined in 
   [6] to prevent two copies of MAC withdraws to be sent, one by MTU-s 
   and another one by PE-rs nodes. Mechanisms to disable MAC Withdraw 
   trigger in certain devices is out of the scope of this document 

 
 
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Author's Addresses 

   Praveen Muley 
   Alcatel-lucent 
   701 E. Middlefiled Road  
   Mountain View, CA, USA  
   Email: Praveen.muley@alcatel-lucent.com 
    
   Mustapha Aissaoui   
   Alcatel-lucent   
   600 March Rd   
   Kanata, ON, Canada K2K 2E6   
   Email: mustapha.aissaoui@alcatel-lucent.com   
    
   Matthew Bocci 
   Alcatel-Lucent 
   Voyager Place, Shoppenhangers Rd 
   Maidenhead, Berks, UK SL6 2PJ 
   Email: matthew.bocci@alcatel-lucent.co.uk 
    
   Pranjal Kumar Dutta  
   Alcatel-Lucent   
   Email: pdutta@alcatel-lucent.com  
        
   Marc Lasserre  
   Alcatel-Lucent  
   Email: mlasserre@alcatel-lucent.com  
    
   Jonathan Newton 
   Cable & Wireless 
   Email: Jonathan.Newton@cw.com 
    
   Olen Stokes  
   Extreme Networks  
   Email: ostokes@extremenetworks.com   
        
   Hamid Ould-Brahim   
   Nortel  
   Email: hbrahim@nortel.com    
    
   Luca Martini 
   Cisco Systems, Inc. 
   9155 East Nichols Avenue, Suite 400 
   Englewood, CO, 80112 
   Email: lmartini@cisco.com 
    
   Thomas Nadeau 
 
 
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   BT 
   tnadeau@lucidvision.com 
    
   Giles Heron 
   BT 
   giles.heron@gmail.com 
    
    
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   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be 
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. 

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any 
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an 
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of 
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this 
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at 
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr. 

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any 
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary 
 
 
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   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement 
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at 
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org. 

       

Acknowledgment 

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the 
   Internet Society. 

    



































 
 
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