802.1AB-2009 – Station and Media Access Control Connectivity Discovery

The scope of this standard is to define a protocol and management elements, suitable for advertising
information to stations attached to the same IEEE 802 LAN, for the purpose of populating physical topology
and device discovery management information databases. The protocol facilitates the identification of
stations connected by IEEE 802 LANs/MANs, their points of interconnection, and access points for
management protocols.
This standard defines a protocol that:

• Advertises connectivity and management information about the local station to adjacent stations on
  the same IEEE 802 LAN.
• Receives network management information from adjacent stations on the same IEEE 802 LAN.
• Operates with all IEEE 802 access protocols and network media.
• Establishes a network management information schema and object definitions that are suitable for
  storing connection information about adjacent stations.
• Provides compatibility with the IETF PTOPO MIB (IETF RFC 2922 [B15]).

An IETF Standard MIB (IETF RFC 2922 [B15]), as well as a number of vendor specific MIBs, have been
created to describe a network’s physical topology and associated systems within that topology. However,
there is no standard protocol for populating these MIBs or communicating this information among stations
on the IEEE 802 LAN.

This standard specifies the necessary protocol and management elements to:

• Facilitate multi-vendor inter-operability and the use of standard management tools to discover and
  make available physical topology information for network management.
• Make it possible for network management to discover certain configuration inconsistencies or
  malfunctions that can result in impaired communication at higher layers.
• Provide information to assist network management in making resource changes and/or reconfigurations
  that correct configuration inconsistencies or malfunctions identified in b) above.

New destination addresses and explicit forwarding rules for LLDP
frames are needed to accurately determine the toplogy over transparent forwarding devices such as
those defined by 802.1ad and 802.1aj. Additionally, new and developing 802 standards, such as
802.3at, 802.1at and 802.1au, have the need to rapidly discover the boundary in the topology for
which particular capabilities are operating. New information elements and a more rapid exchange of
LLDP frames is necessary to support the timely discovery of this boundary. Users of this standard
will be able to accurately exchange information on a greater set of 802.1 topologies and will
experience a more rapid convergence of information.

StatusStandard approved September 11th, 2009
DocumentDraft 6.0
EditorTony Jeffree

DateDocument

Last status: 0
Last modified by jmesseng, at 11:48AM on Tue, 30 Jun 2009