Liaison statement
Liaison to IETF on Flex Ethernet for IP/MPLS Networks

Additional information about IETF liaison relationships is available on the IETF webpage and the Internet Architecture Board liaison webpage.
State Posted
Submitted Date 2017-05-18
From Group BROADBAND-FORUM
From Contact Michael Fargano
To Groups ccamp, mpls, pce, teas
To Contacts Vishnu Pavan Beeram <vbeeram@juniper.net>
Lou Berger <lberger@labn.net>
Nicolai Leymann <n.leymann@telekom.de>
Loa Andersson <loa@pi.nu>
George Swallow <swallow.ietf@gmail.com>
Jonathan Hardwick <jonathan.hardwick@metaswitch.com>
JP Vasseur <jpv@cisco.com>
Julien Meuric <julien.meuric@orange.com>
Daniele Ceccarelli <daniele.ceccarelli@ericsson.com>
Fatai Zhang <zhangfatai@huawei.com>
Cc Alvaro Retana <aretana@cisco.com>
Deborah Brungard <db3546@att.com>
Julien Meuric <julien.meuric@orange.com>
Multiprotocol Label Switching Discussion List <mpls@ietf.org>
David Sinicrope <david.sinicrope@ericsson.com>
Jonathan Hardwick <jonathan.hardwick@metaswitch.com>
Fatai Zhang <zhangfatai@huawei.com>
George Swallow <swallow.ietf@gmail.com>
Path Computation Element Discussion List <pce@ietf.org>
JP Vasseur <jpv@cisco.com>
Vishnu Beeram <vbeeram@juniper.net>
Alia Atlas <akatlas@gmail.com>
Daniele Ceccarelli <daniele.ceccarelli@ericsson.com>
Traffic Engineering Architecture and Signaling Discussion List <teas@ietf.org>
Loa Andersson <loa@pi.nu>
Lou Berger <lberger@labn.net>
Common Control and Measurement Plane Discussion List <ccamp@ietf.org>
Nicolai Leymann <n.leymann@telekom.de>
Response Contact michael.fargano@centurylink.com
david.sinicrope@ericsson.com
Purpose For information
Attachments Liaison to IETF CCAMP on FlexE-Cheng-Huawei
Body 
At our 2017Q2 meeting in Taipei, the Broadband Forum initiated a new project
entitled “Applicability of Flex Ethernet in IP/MPLS Networks”. This project
addresses the architecture, requirements and use cases in IP/MPLS networks to
deploy Flex Ethernet (a.k.a. FlexE) as a new type of nodal interface.

OIF published “Flex Ethernet Implementation Agreement” (IA OIF-FLEXE-01.0) in
March 2016. Our project intends to use FlexE and its related aspects specified
by that document including data plane characteristics and provisioning
requirements in IP/MPLS networks, including:

• Interconnection between routers on FlexE interfaces in IP/MPLS networks.
• End-to-end MPLS LSPs on FlexE-based channels.
• Control plane protocols (e.g. RSVP-TE, PCEP) including their extensions and
their applicability aspects for managing FlexE based MPLS LSP. • Aspects of
using FlexE interfaces and FlexE-based MPLS LSP as a network slicing instance.
• Co-existence of FlexE-based and other data link based MPLS LSPs and their
operation. • New services and applications that FlexE-capable IP/MPLS networks
can enable.

We are sending this liaison to inform you about our intention.

We noticed that there are IETF drafts at CCAMP WG that propose to use GMPLS
protocols with extensions to support FlexE based MPLS LSP; we are interested in
learning the progress and status of the progress.

Sincerely,
Michael Fargano,
Broadband Forum Technical Committee Chair