RFC 2129 (rfc2129) - Page 1 of 19
Toshiba's Flow Attribute Notification Protocol (FANP) Specification
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group K. Nagami
Request for Comments: 2129 Y. Katsube
Category: Informational Y. Shobatake
A. Mogi
S. Matsuzawa
T. Jinmei
H. Esaki
Toshiba R&D Center
April 1997
Toshiba's Flow Attribute Notification Protocol (FANP) Specification
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This memo discusses Flow Attribute Notification Protocol (FANP),
which is a protocol between neighbor nodes for the management of
cut-through packet forwarding functionalities. In cut-through packet
forwarding, a router doesn't have to perform conventional IP packet
processing for received packets. FANP indicates mapping information
between a datalink connection and a packet flow to the neighbor node
and helps a pair of nodes manage the mapping information. By using
FANP, routers (e.g., CSR; Cell Switch Router) can forward incoming
packets based on their datalink-level connection identifiers,
bypassing usual IP packet processing. The design policy of the FANP
is;
(1) soft-state cut-through path (Dedicated-VC) management
(2) protocol between neighbor nodes instead of end-to-end
(3) applicable to any connection oriented datalink platform
1. Background
Due to the scalability requirement, connection oriented (CO) datalink
platforms, e.g., ATM and Frame Relay, are going to be used as well as
connection less (CL) datalink platforms, e.g., Ethernet and FDDI.
One of the important features of the CO datalink is the presence of a
datalink-level connection identifier. In the CO datalink, we can
establish multiple virtual connections (VCs) with their VC
identifiers among the nodes. When we aggregate packets that have the
same direction (e.g., having the same destination IP address) into a
single VC, we can forward the packets in the VC without IP
Nagami, et. al. Informational