LevelOne GTL-2691 User Manual

Page 482

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C

HAPTER

14

| Basic Administration Protocols

Connectivity Fault Management

– 482 –

CLI R

EFERENCES

"CFM Commands" on page 1309

C

OMMAND

U

SAGE

Configuring General Settings

Where domains are nested, an upper-level hierarchical domain must

have a higher maintenance level than the ones it encompasses. The

higher to lower level domain types commonly include entities such as

customer, service provider, and operator.

More than one domain can be configured at the same maintenance

level, but a single domain can only be configured with one maintenance

level.

If MEPs (see

"Configuring Maintenance End Points"

) or MAs (see

"Configuring CFM Maintenance Associations"

) are configured for a

domain, they must first be removed before you can remove the

domain.
Maintenance domains are designed to provide a transparent method of

verifying and resolving connectivity problems for end-to-end

connections. By default, these connections run between the domain

service access points (DSAPs) within each MA defined for a domain,

and are manually configured (see

"Configuring Maintenance End

Points"

).

In contrast, MIPs are interconnection points that make up all possible

paths between the DSAPs within an MA. MIPs are automatically

generated by the CFM protocol when the MIP Creation Type is set to

“Default” or “Explicit,” and the MIP creation state machine is invoked

(as defined in IEEE 802.1ag). The default option allows MIPs to be

created for all interconnection points within an MA, regardless of the

domain’s level in the maintenance hierarchy (e.g., customer, provider,

or operator). While the explicit option only generates MIPs within an MA

if its associated domain is not at the bottom of the maintenance

hierarchy. This option is used to hide the structure of network at the

lowest domain level.
The diagnostic functions provided by CFM can be used to detect

connectivity failures between any pair of MEPs in an MA. Using MIPs

allows these failures to be isolated to smaller segments of the network.
Allowing the CFM to generate MIPs exposes more of the network

structure to users at higher domain levels, but can speed up the

process of fault detection and recovery. This trade-off should be

carefully considered when designing a CFM maintenance structure.
Also note that while MEPs are active agents which can initiate

consistency check messages (CCMs), transmit loop back or link trace

messages, and maintain the local CCM database, MIPs, on the other

hand, are passive agents which can only validate received CFM

messages, and respond to loop back and link trace messages.

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