Benefits Of Ethernet Oam - Cisco ASR 920 Series Configuration Manual Ethernet Router

Using Ethernet Operations Administration and Maintenance

Benefits of Ethernet OAM

Ethernet OAM provides the following benefits:
• Competitive advantage for service providers
• Standardized mechanism to monitor the health of a link and perform diagnostics
Cisco Implementation of Ethernet OAM
The Cisco implementation of Ethernet OAM consists of the Ethernet OAM shim and the Ethernet OAM
module.
The Ethernet OAM shim is a thin layer that connects the Ethernet OAM module and the platform code. It is
implemented in the platform code (driver). The shim also communicates port state and error conditions to the
Ethernet OAM module via control signals.
The Ethernet OAM module, implemented within the control plane, handles the OAM client as well as control
block functionality of the OAM sublayer. This module interacts with the CLI and Simple Network Management
Protocol (SNMP)/programmatic interface via control signals. In addition, this module interacts with the
Ethernet OAM shim through OAM PDU flows.
OAM Features
The OAM features as defined by IEEE 802.3ah, Ethernet in the First Mile , are discovery, Link Monitoring,
Remote Fault Detection, Remote Loopback, and Cisco Proprietary Extensions.
Discovery
Discovery is the first phase of Ethernet OAM and it identifies the devices in the network and their OAM
capabilities. Discovery uses information OAM PDUs. During the discovery phase, the following information
is advertised within periodic information OAM PDUs:
• OAM mode--Conveyed to the remote OAM entity. The mode can be either active or passive and can be
• OAM configuration (capabilities)--Advertises the capabilities of the local OAM entity. With this
• OAM PDU configuration--Includes the maximum OAM PDU size for receipt and delivery. This
• Platform identity--A combination of an organization unique identifier (OUI) and 32-bits of vendor-specific
Discovery includes an optional phase in which the local station can accept or reject the configuration of the
peer OAM entity. For example, a node may require that its partner support loopback capability to be accepted
into the management network. These policy decisions may be implemented as vendor-specific extensions.
used to determine device functionality.
information a peer can determine what functions are supported and accessible; for example, loopback
capability.
information along with the rate limiting of 10 frames per second can be used to limit the bandwidth
allocated to OAM traffic.
information. OUI allocation, controlled by the IEEE, is typically the first three bytes of a MAC address.
Cisco Implementation of Ethernet OAM
Carrier Ethernet Configuration Guide (Cisco ASR 920 Series)
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