Re: [PWE3] Inter-op is not necessary

[Andy Li <andyli9898 at gmail.com>]

Shane 

  Not arguing with you. Jumper cables between ODF(DDF) has been
however a fact for SP to provision circuits ever since the first day
the lease line (called DDN in China) was introduced. I also admit it
was part of the reason why SP wanna get rid of it and replace it with
CES back in late 1990 in order to cut OPEX. We are now just trying to
do it again with either GMPLS signaled devices, i.e. MSTP/MSPP or PW
over bandwidth-rich IP backbone(s). In fact, we do have a customer
today which runs provisioning three times in order to provide MS-PW
over two-tier backbone (provincial-national-provincial)! While we wait
for the standard(s), jumper cable between ODF(DDF) is the best
practice. 

  I sometimes wonder why SP is still working with us (vendors) to
define their secret weapons (aka new telecom services). Back in the old
days, AT&T would have probably implemented it in their own lab so
that they could have OPEX advantage over other carriers.  I guess
neither IETF nor any of us has the responsibility promoting fair
competition. Let market decide which one will be the least-evil if
there is one.

Best
Andy Li

PS. I think fair competition kills AT&T :-)))

On 11/10/05, Shane Amante <shane at castlepoint.net> wrote:

I disagree.  The problem with the approach you suggest in your last
sentence below is it's very manually intensive (read: non-dynamic) in
terms of provisioning (adds, changes, decomm's) of MS-PW's between two
domains.  I would much rather have a dynamic MS-PW protocol running
across a Carrier<->Carrier interface, than humans stringing cables in
patch panels.   Therefore, IMO (as an SP), MS-PW interop is extremely
important thing to figure out before we go much further down the path of
MS-PW and vendors start to implement pre-standard, non-interoperable
versions of MS-PW creating [even more of] a mess for SP's.

Furthermore, let's not forget that one of the significant downsides to
two, separate MS-PW protocols (that do not interoperate) is that some
carriers will get locked into one vendor who only implements MS-PW
protocol "A", while the rest of the market/carriers have chosen MS-PW
protocol "B".  Or, carriers tell vendors to implement both, (because
they don't want lock-in), which begs the question of why didn't we just
choose one in the beginning?  At the risk of stating the obvious, why
can't we just apply the 80/20 rule in deciding which one of the
protocols is best, (a.k.a.: "least-evil"), and move forward with it,
rather than cycling on two protcols simultaneously and figuring out
various interactions/interoperation between the two?

In the end, it is my hope that the WG does ultimately decide on *one*
MS-PW protocol in order to avoid confusion in the marketplace which
ultimately will hurt not only vendors, but also SP's and SP's customers.

My $0.02,

-shane


Andy Li wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   I don't think it is necessary to have both signaling mechanism for
> MS-PW inter-op with each other. If two providers agree to peer with
> each other to provide PW services, it will be a bonus if they two use
> the same mechanism to set up PW circuits. If not, the business
> interests will encourage them to stitch the PW circuits by using
> back2back logical/virtual interface(s) or even a jumper fiber between
> ODF.
>
>   Therefore, out of my own opinion, the inter-op requirement should be removed.
>
> Best
> Andy Li
>
> _______________________________________________
> pwe3 mailing list
> pwe3 at ietf.org
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