Hi Sunny,

On Sep 26, 2012, at 11:10 , Sunny Rajagopalan <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> Hi, Kireeti, Aldrin 
> The MPLS label was originally meant to identify a link,

Speaking freely for the inventors of MPLS, the semantics of a label were kept 
very very loose; the associated signaling told you what the label meant.  So, 
an MPLS label for RSVP-TE might be thought of as a link identifier, but an LDP 
label was a proxy for a destination (egress LSR).  A 2547/4364/EVPN label is a 
lookup table identifier.

> and got overridden in rfc4364 as a _local_ identifier of VPNs and has now  
> further morphed in draft-drake-nvo3-evpn-control-plane to be a _global_ 
> identifier of VPNs to accommodate the VNID. As a semantic conservative, this 
> drift worries me. :-)

Perhaps less so for me.

> The RD is meant to distinguish between routes, just like the VNID is meant to 
> distinguish between routes from different tenants. If using a type 0 bothers 
> RD purists, maybe we could define a new type for it? The VNID is typically 
> administratively assigned, just like the RD. It's true that the RD has never 
> been seen before on the wire, but the VNID has already broken that taboo. 
> It's time to call the VNID what it really is - an RD. 

RDs have a very specific purpose: to distinguish routes in the control plane.  
VNIDs and labels are to choose forwarding tables; they are a data plane 
construct.

However, the argument that a separate BGP attribute should have been used to 
signal the label has been made before, and has validity, but that's water under 
the bridge.

> Semantic arguments aside, the chief reason I preferred using the RD instead 
> of the MPLS label is that it would allow us to encode the complete 24 bit 
> VNID in the BGP route, instead of truncating it to 20 bits to fit inside the 
> MPLS label field. 

I've already suggested to the authors that they go back to 24 bits -- there is 
a 24-bit/three-octet field, just use it.

Kireeti.

> -- 
> Sunny 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:        Kireeti Kompella <[email protected]> 
> To:        Aldrin Isaac <[email protected]>, 
> Cc:        Sunny Rajagopalan/Santa Clara/IBM@IBMUS, "[email protected]" 
> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" 
> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, 
> "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, 
> "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" 
> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" 
> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> 
> Date:        09/26/2012 09:39 AM 
> Subject:        Re: [nvo3] comments on draft-drake-nvo3-evpn-control-plane 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks, Aldrin!
> 
> More inline. 
> 
> On Sep 25, 2012, at 21:23, Aldrin Isaac <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> >> 1) I would suggest *not* altering the semantics of the MPLS label in the 
> >> BGP
> >> route.
> 
> Note that no one is suggesting altering the semantics of an MPLS label. 
> What's proposed is altering the interpretation of a three-byte field in the 
> NLRI. 
> 
> >> Instead, use the route distinguisher to carry the 24-bit VNID (this
> >> is arguably better since the semantics of the RD align better with the
> >> semantics of the VNID). I would suggest encoding this as a type 0 RD, with
> >> the VNID going into the Assigned number sub-field. In addition, call out
> >> that an MPLS label value of 0 in the BGP route is a valid value, and will 
> >> be
> >> used by PEs which do not support MPLS encap.
> > 
> > The RD was not intended to be used to signal data plane bits. That's
> > what the label field is for.
> 
> Exactly. Worse than that, the RD is responsible for _distinguishing_ routes. 
> If VNIDs are locally generated (an option well worth holding on to), all 
> manner of hell will break loose. 
> 
> Kireeti
> 
> 
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