RFC 2129 (rfc2129) - Page 3 of 19

Toshiba's Flow Attribute Notification Protocol (FANP) Specification

RFC 2129                   FANP Specification                 April 1997


2.2  Future Enhancement

   The followings are the future enhancements to be done.

        (1) Aggregated flow

          In this memo, we define the flow which contain source and
          destination IP address.  As this may require many VC
          resources, we also need a new definition of aggregated flow
          which includes several end-to-end flows.  The concrete
          definition of the aggregated flow is for future study.

        (2) Providing multicast service
        (3) Supporting IP level QOS signaling like RSVP
        (4) Supporting IPv6

3. Terminology and Definition

   o VCID (Virtual Connection IDentifier)
      Since VPI/VCI values at the origination and the termination points
      of a VC (and VP) may not be the same, we need an identifier to
      uniquely identify the datalink connection between neighbor nodes.
      We define this identifier as a VCID.  Currently, only one type of
      VCID is defined.  This VCID contains the ESI (End System
      Identifier) of a source node and the unique identifier within a
      source node.

   o Flow ID (Flow IDentifier)
      IP level packet flow is identified by some parameters in a packet.
      Currently, only one type of flow ID is defined.  This flow ID
      contains a source IP address and a destination IP address.  Note
      that flow ID used in this specification is not the same as the
      flow-id specified in IPv6.

   o Cut-through packet forwarding
      Packets are forwarded without any IP processing at the router
      using the datalink level information (e.g.,VPI/VCI).
      Internetworking level information (e.g., destination IP address)
      is mapped to the corresponding datalink-level identifier by using
      the FANP.

   o Hop-by-Hop packet forwarding
      Packets are forwarded using IP level information like conventional
      routers.  In ATM, cells are re-assembled into packets at the
      router to analyze the IP header.






Nagami, et. al.              Informational