Re: [nznog] Another Topic

Hey Michael Thanks for you reply to my post. I think the lack of replies is interesting. Quite telling, or maybe I am reading too much into it. ;-) Rgds Peter Michael Newbery wrote:

On 29/11/06 12:35 PM, "Peter Youngquest" wrote:

...

Hey All

I am personally bored with the IPV4-6 discussion, but while everyone is up and talking.

What is everyones opinion in regard to PBT. Does this have a place, can it work happily as a feeder into an MPLS cloud or will it remove the need for MPLS.

Aka IEEE 802.1ah (draft)

<opinion> Tool = hammer => problem => nail.

If you like circuits and never felt comfortable with this newfangled packet thing, then 1ah is a way to make Ethernet feel more familiar to you. Note that it also requires 802.1ag (draft) and QinQ to work, which is not immediately obvious from a first reading. My issue is that it has the Someone Else's Problem property. Actually setting up and tearing down circuits is an exercise left to the reader, whereas it's very much at the heart of what MPLS does.

So, yes, it can work happily as a feeder into an MPLS cloud. If you don't already have an MPLS cloud it might be an attractive alternative. If you do already have an MPLS cloud I'm not sure that you would want to replace it (others may have different opinions).

802.1ah is somewhat of a behemoth: the PBT function is one of 3 things that it does. I *do* think it's useful. From my limited exposure thus far, I don't think it obsoletes MPLS. </opinion>