What Entities Make Up A Maintenance Domain - Dell PowerConnect 7048P Manual

Powerconnect 7000 series stackable layer 2 and 3 switches

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never intersect. The operator transparently passes frames from the customer

and provider, and the customer does not see the operator frames. Multiple

levels within a domain (say, operator) are supported for flexibility.

What Entities Make Up a Maintenance Domain?

Dot1ag defines three primary entities that make up the maintenance domain:

Maintenance End Points (MEPs), Maintenance Intermediate Points (MIPs),

and Maintenance Associations (MAs).

MEPs, and MIPs

MEPs and MIPs are software or sometimes hardware per-service entities

where CFM functionalities are present.

MEPs define the boundary of a maintenance domain. They initiate and

respond to CFM messages. MEPs prevent the leaking of CFM messages

between domains (for example, among operators or between operators and

customers). Each MEP has a configurable unique identifier (MEPID) in a

maintenance domain.

MEPs periodically issue Continuity Check Messages (CCM) to discover

each other and issue SNMP traps to report connectivity losses or

malformed or incorrect CCMs.

A MEP can be defined as "down MEP" or an "up MEP". A down MEPs

reside in a bridge that transmits CFM PDUs towards, and receives them

from, the direction of the LAN. An up MEP resides in a bridge that

transmits CFM PDUs towards, and receives them from, the direction of

the Bridge Relay Entity.

connectivity and other services to systems outside the domain is referred to

as a Domain Service Access Point (DoSAP). A MEP is a type of DoSAP

whose services relate to connectivity fault management.

MIPs are entities within a domain that enable the outer domain to achieve

end-to-end connectivity checks. MIPs passively receive CFM messages and

respond back to the originating MEP.

Figure 26-2 depicts two MEPs and the MIPs that connect them in a

maintenance domain.

An entity at the boundary of maintenance domain that offers

Configuring Connectivity Fault Management