ITU blasts IETF over MPLS standards stoush

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 15 March 2011 15:19

Business IT - Technology

The ITU has fired a second salvo in its war of words against the IETF over their split on standards for operation and management of MPLS networks, laying the blame squarely on the IETF.

The spat became public at the end of February when the IETF and the Internet Society (ISOC) published, in ISOC's monthly newsletter an attack on the ITU's decision to develop standards for OAM in MPLS networks separate from those being developed by the IETF. IETF chairman, Russ Housley, said he was "disappointed at the action taken by the ITU,"

The article described the split between the two organisations - that have a long history of technical collaboration -as being "without precedent," and said: "This step, over time, will affect the flow of Internet traffic, as separate standards will lead to products that are not able to interoperate."

The ITU was quick to respond with its own announcement, playing down claims that the different standards would cause major problems and blaming IETF for bringing about the divergence between the two organisations.

IETF and ISOC appear not to have made any further public statements on the matter, but the ITU has now issued a lengthy statement, 'MPLS-TP the Facts' saying: "With ITU's recent announcement on an OAM standard for MPLS in transport networks generating claims from the Internet Society that it will jeopardise the Internet, counter claims and much press coverage it seems the right time to set the record straight." It pulls no punches in blaming IETF for the situation.

The ITU and the IETF have successfully collaborated on MPLS standardisation and several years ago, both organisations created a joint working team (JWT) to examine the feasibility of developing a single, collaborative solution to MPLS transport requirements.

According to IETF, "The JWT provided a report that stated not only that a single solution was possible but also confirmed that it was possible to extend the existing MPLS architecture to meet additional requirements. The JWT report went on to recommend that protocol development for this enhanced MPLS, to be known as MPLS-TP, should be undertaken by the IETF. Both organisations subsequently endorsed these findings and formally accepted the JWT report in December 2008.

However according to the ITU "it is the IETF who have chosen to characterise the ITU actions as breaking the agreement despite the fact that they have already ignored the proposals in the JWT report'¦Despite all this effort on the part of ITU to collaborate with IETF it is now falsely claiming that ITU reneged on the JWT agreement."