VPLS Interoperability with CE Bridges
Ali Sajassi · 2006
One of the main motivations behind VPLS is its ability to provide connectivity not only among customer routers and servers/hosts but also among customer IEEE bridges. VPLS is expected to deliver the same level of service that current enterprise users are accustomed to from their own enterprise bridged networks or their Ethernet Service Providers. When CE devices are IEEE bridges, then there are certain issues and challenges that need to be accounted for in a VPLS network. The majority of these issues have currently been addressed in the IEEE 802.1ad standard for provider bridges and they can be leveraged for VPLS networks. This draft extends the PE model described in RFC 4664 based on IEEE 802.1ad bridge module and illustrates a clear demarcation between IEEE bridge module and IETF LAN emulation module. By doing so, it describes that the majority of interoperability issues with CE bridges can be delegated to 802.1ad bridge module, thus removing the burden on IETF LAN emulation module within a VPLS PE. Conventions