Standards Bodies

List of standards bodies in which Extreme Networks® is actively engaged in order to create, develop, publish and promote standards.

IEEE 802

The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC)

maintains and develops standards related to local and metropolitan area networking. The principle groups with 802 for Ethernet are the 802.1 HILI and 802.3 LAN/MAN standards committees. Other 802 active committees include 802.11 Wireless. Extreme is actively participating in all of these IEEE committees. IEEE 802 committee holds 3 plenary meetings annually and the specific committees generally hold interim meeting in between each of the plenary. A detailed description of the LMSC organization, its charter, history and information on meetings is contained in this overview document 802overview.pdf.

http://www.ieee802.org

Downloads of standards and documents are available six months after publication in PDF format at the "GetIEEE802" web site" http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/.

IEEE 802.3 Committee

The IEEE 802.3 Working Group develops standards for CSMA/CD (Ethernet) based LANs. Technologies that have been added to the standard over the years include Ethernet 10Base-2, 10BaseT, FastEthernet, 100Base-T, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Following the successful conclusion of the 10Gigabit Ethernet project 802.3ae last year the remaining active projects 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile.

Other projects active in 802.3 are 802.3af - DTE power, 802.3aj a maintenance project (to clean up the 802.3 standard as a whole and web site provides direct links to all of these project.

IEEE 802.3ah project, Ethernet in the First Mile

This project has developed a set of standards to enable Ethernet deployment over fiber optic cable and voice grade copper in the Telecom access network. The EFM Task Force is has established a set of mechanisms for Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM) to enhance the remote management capabilities of Ethernet equipment in the access network and used as Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). For more information go to the IEEE P802.3ah web site. Additionally Extreme is a founding member of the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance see more on the Industry Associations page.

http://www.ieee802.org/3/efm

Extreme continues its active participation in the IEEE as part of IEEE P802.3an 10Gig-Base-T, P802.3aq 10Gig LRM Long Reach Multimode and the P802.3as Frame Format Expansion working group

Extreme has contributed significantly to the IEEE over the past 7 years from the recent 10 Gigabit Ethernet, to 1 Gigabit and 100MB Fast Ethernet, Extreme has been a key technical contributor to the IEEE since the early 1990's.

IEEE 802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet) - Ratified and now part of 802.3

Supplement to CSMA/CD Access Method & Physical Layer Specifications - Media Access Control (MAC) Parameters, Physical Layer, and Management Parameters for 10 Gb/s Operation.

IEEE 802.3z (Gigabit Ethernet) - Ratified and now part of 802.3

An IEEE extension of the 802.3 standard, to address Gigabit Ethernet (1,000 Mb/s). It includes specifications for media access control (MAC) parameters, as well as physical layer, repeater, and management parameters for Gigabit Ethernet.

IEEE 802.3u (Fast Ethernet) - Ratified and now part of 802.3

Supplement to Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Access Method and Physical Layer Specifications: Media Access Control (MAC) Parameters, Physical Layer, Medium Attachment, and Repeater for 100 Mb/s Operation, Type 100 Base-T.

IEEE 802.1 High Level Interface (HILI) Committee

The IEEE 802.1 Working Group is chartered to concern itself with and develop standards and recommended practices for higher level interfaces to the 802 LAN/MAN architecture, internetworking among 802 LANs, MANs and other wide area networks. The HILI group is responsible for Bridging operations and protocols, overall network management, and protocol layers above the MAC & LLC layers. This is committee is primarily concerned with the architecture of Ethernet L2 bridged networks, and standardizes protocols and concepts including MAC and VLAN addressing, Ethernet packet formats, control protocols (like Bridge Control Protocols, BPDUs).

Recently the group has turned its attention to protocols and procedures designed to help Service Providers use Ethernet in the public network. The IEEE 802.1ad Provider Bridge project is focused on standardizing mechanisms to improve the scalability and provisioning capabilities of Ethernet networks. Areas of consideration are standard mechanisms for VLAN tag stacking, standard procedures for handling control protocols (such as BPDU or LACP packets) and other architectural issues related to the use of Ethernet in the public metro and access networks.

More information is available on the 802.1 web-site located at: http://standards.ieee.org/1/

IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.

The actual technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups, which are organized by topic into several areas (e.g., routing, transport, security, etc.). Much of the work is handled via mailing lists. The IETF holds meetings three times per year. Extreme has recently published an Informational RFC on Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching (EAPS) technology IETFRFC 3619 in an attempt to define an open and widely deployed technology for improving the resiliency of Ethernet Ring-based networks.

Here are a few of the standards that Extreme Networks has helped shape as part of the IETF:

IETF Ethernet Interfaces Working Group

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2668.txt

IETF SNMP Version 3 Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/snmpv3-charter.html

IETF Bridge MIB Working Group

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2674.txt

IETF Internationalized Domain Name Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/idn-charter.html

IETF OSPF Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ospf-charter.html

IETF MPLS Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/mpls-charter.html

IETF Ethernet Interfaces and Hub MIB Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/hubmib-charter.html

IETF Secure Shell Working Group

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/secsh-charter.html

IETF Integrated Services over Specific Link Layers (ISSLL) Working Group

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2816.txt

Internet Architecture Board

http://www.iab.org/

Trusted Computing Group

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an industry standards body, comprised of computer and device manufacturers, software vendors, and others with a stake in enhancing the security of the computing environment across multiple platforms and devices. Extreme is actively participating in the Trusted Network Connect standard, which will bring open, multi-vendor solutions to the area of host integrity checking, giving IT administrators tools for gaining the upper hand on today's rapidly-spreading security threats.