Margaret Wasserman writes:
> If I seem to be missing an important point or concept, please send
> some hints or pointers.
Margaret,
I don't think you're alone wondering what all the
fuss is about with the flow label since it's
fairly obvious that normal Intserv classifiers
function equivalently. However, there's two fairly
important things that the flow label brings to the
party:
1) Speed
Speed is primarily due to the fact that the flow's
tag is in the IP header itself at a fixed
location. This simplifies the processing --
helpful for ASIC's -- as well allowing
classification of problematic flows, such
as IPsec and flows which contain destination
options or other things which require that
the header list be traversed.
2) Protocol independence
RSVP normally uses a 5 tuple which implicitly
expect a source and destination port. Other
protocols either disagree (IPsec which requires
classification based on SPI) or are undefined
(SCTP...). Use of the flow label will allow us to
deploy new protocols without having to come up
with new RFC's to describe how to create its own
flow classifier. Better, it will not require
software/hardware upgrades in routers to be able
to give QoS treatment to new IP protocols.
Mike
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