The MPLS WG Archive

[David Charlap <david.charlap@marconi.com>]

Loa Andersson wrote:
>> 
>> The main characteristic of a Connection Oriented service is the
>> long term association required between two end points.
> 
> This makes IP a connection oriented technology!

No.  There is no association between endpoints with _IP_.  However, TCP
does establish such a connection.  TCP is a connection-oriented
protocol, even though it is built over a connectionless network layer.

As for MPLS, it is just as connection-oriented as ATM.  Does the fact
that UNI signaling is point-to-point change the fact that it serves to
establish virtual circuits?  Similarly, does the fact that MPLS
signaling (RSVP-TE, LDP and CR-LDP) act point-to-point change the fact
that the end result is a connection-oriented LSP between two points in
the network.

I am curious, however, why you care.  Does the application of the term
"connection oriented" make the technology any more or less useful?

> As a matter of fact an LSP might have any number of upstream
> end points,  but these association is not any more pernanent than
> an IP route.

The existance of an LSP is not the same as deciding what data to
transmit through that LSP.

Will you say that the phone line my modem dials through is not
connection oriented because the computer it's attached to makes
per-packet forwarding decisions from multiple endpoints (the computers
in my home LAN) before sending data over it?

The connection is there, even if connectionless technology is used to
send data over that connection.

-- David