[120717] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Restrictions on Ethernet L2 circuits?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sthaug@nethelp.no)
Thu Dec 31 13:56:29 2009
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:55:42 +0100 (CET)
To: simon.leinen@switch.ch
From: sthaug@nethelp.no
In-Reply-To: <aa3a2r2jl4.fsf@switch.ch>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org, Even.Endresen@bkk.no
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> > Or should the service provider implement port security and limit the
> > number of MAC addresses on the access ports, forcing the customer to
> > connect a router in both ends and segment their network?
>
> That would make the service less attractive, and also more complex to
> set up and maintain. For point-to-point service, there is really no
> reason for the network to care about customers' MAC addresses, VLAN tags
> and such.
*If* the customer connects directly to a router which terminates
EoMPLS, I agree. But router ports are usually expensive, which
often means that the customer connects to a switch. And switches
definitely care about MAC addresses.
> Couldn't PBB or even Q-in-Q provide that isolation as well, at least for
> point-to-point services? I must say that I don't personally have much
> experience with those, because we tend to connect our customers to
> EoMPLS-capable routers directly.
QinQ does nothing to reduce the number of MAC addresses required.
PBB can do this, but there is still not a lot of PBB equipment
available.
> > Also, do you see a demand for multi-point layer 2 networks (requiring
> > VPLS), or are point-to-point layer 2 circuits sufficient to meet
> > market demand?
>
> That's a big question for us right now... we're not sure yet. I'd like to
> hear others' opinions on this.
There is some demand there. Whether that makes it worth it implementing
as a product is another question. Trouybleshooting multipoint is more
difficult than troubleshooting point to point circuits.
Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no
