Subject: RE: Why MPLS is called so

From: Abhishek Gupta <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 14:40:44 +0530

What about "IP" ?
:)
-----Original Message-----
From:	Tony Li [SMTP:[email-masked]]
Sent:	Wednesday, November 03, 1999 2:23 PM
To:	Navin kumar Agrawal
Cc:	[email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject:	Re: Why MPLS is called so

> > Hi all,
> > A very basic doubt...
> > Why is MPLS called multiprotocol?

Because when we tried to just call it "Label Switching", it only had a
two letter acronym, and everyone knows that all successful acronyms have
at least three letters.

Tony

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From: "Peter Ashwood-Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 13:57:29 -0500

The best explaination I've seen is that it is 
Multi Protocol above and below.

  Since the label switching can be on any layer 2 it
is multi protocol below.

  Since it does not route and in effect tunnels packets
it is multi protocol above.

  Cheers and
  with considerable restraint  ;)

  Peter Ashwood-Smith

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 19:06:47 +0000 (GMT)

> Multi Protocol above and below.

This would mean that MPLS is intended to form the waist of the
protocol hourglass; a common constraint point for upward and downward
compatibility.

Some people believe that IP already has that role, of course:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tcm/cs_seminars/deering_abstract_s99.html

L.

the waist of the hourglass is no longer as narrow and elegant as it
once was, eh?

>   with considerable restraint  ;)

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

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From: Grenville Armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 11:30:52 -0800

Lloyd Wood wrote:
	[..]
> the waist of the hourglass is no longer as narrow and elegant as it

We all know that, stripped of its hype, MPLS is merely rounding out
the function connectionless IP lacks - a sense of non-shortest path 
connection.

cheers,
gja
________________________________________________________________________
Grenville Armitage                            http://mh005.infi.net/~gja
Bell Labs Research, Lucent Technologies

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From: Yakov Rekhter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 11:38:41 -0800

Lloyd,

> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tcm/cs_seminars/deering_abstract_s99.html

Freedom of opinions is fundamental and unalienated right of every
individual. Of course, not every opinion reflects the reality....

Yakov.