The IESG has approved the following document: - 'Encapsulation for Bit Index Explicit Replication in MPLS and non-MPLS Networks' (draft-ietf-bier-mpls-encapsulation-12.txt) as Experimental RFC This document is the product of the Bit Indexed Explicit Replication Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Alvaro Retana, Alia Atlas and Deborah Brungard. A URL of this Internet Draft is: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-bier-mpls-encapsulation/ Technical Summary BIER represents a novel forwarding paradigm resulting in a replication-capable network underlay. The according header contains, amongst other information, a bitstring in which each bit represents exactly one egress router in the domain; to forward the packet to a given set of egress routers, the bits corresponding to those routers are set in the header. The details of the encapsulation depend on the type of network used to realize the multicast domain. This document specifies a BIER encapsulation that can be used in an MPLS network, or with slight differences, in a non-MPLS network as well. Working Group Summary This document was processed by the BIER WG and underwent extensive WG and MPLS WG last call review. Several other proposals for non-MPLS encapsulation have been extended but expired after this document covered the space in a more uniform way. The document underwent a well-attended face to face interim WG meeting. Ultimate WG consensus was solid and the document has been supported by representatives of all major vendors, multiple large customers and a large custom silicon vendor. Document Quality Document underwent extensive number of revisions and solid amount of convergence and discussion over a period of three years. One major vendor confirmed implementation. At least two other, major vendors seem to be in the process without explicit confirmation. Personnel Document Shepherd: Tony Przygienda (prz@juniper.net) Responsible Area Director: Alia Atlas (akatlas@gmail.com)
