Method and apparatus for increasing the scalability of the ethernet OAM

摘要

After statically provisioned paths are created through an Ethernet network, trunks may be created to extend along those paths. The trunks extend between pairs of NNI interfaces on either end of the path, and Ethernet OAM may be run over the trunks to detect connectivity along the paths. Service instances and service groups may be provisioned over particular paths through the network. Each service instance/service group is associated with a trunk and the Ethernet OAM service on the trunk may be used to provide Ethernet connectivity OAM for the service instance/service group. Upon detection of a failure on the trunk, the service instances/service groups associated with the trunk may be caused to failover to an alternate path through the network. Thus, a single Ethernet OAM service instance may be used to provide connectivity verification so that connectivity detection does not need to be performed on each individual service instances/service group.

主权项

1. A Provider Edge (PE) network element, comprising:
a plurality of user-network interfaces (UNIs) configured to establish service instances and service groups along paths through a network; a plurality of network-network interfaces (NNIs) configured to establish a plurality of first trunks over the paths through the network; and first control logic configured to implement Ethernet operation, administration and maintenance (OAM) over an OAM trunk, the OAM trunk being one of the plurality of first trunks and reserved for OAM functions only, to enable connectivity on the paths to be monitored; and second control logic configured to detect a connectivity failure on the OAM trunk, and when the connectivity failure is detected, to switch service groups and service instances configured to use a same path as the OAM trunk to an alternate path in the network.