Supporting In Situ Operations, Administration and Maintenance Using MPLS Network Actions

In situ Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (IOAM), defined in RFC 9197, is an on-path telemetry method to collect and record the operational state and telemetry information using, for example, Pre- allocated, Proof-of-Transit, Edge-to-Edge, or Incremental IOAM Options that can be used to calculate various performance metrics. RFC 9326 defines the IOAM Direct Export (IOAM-DEX) Option in which the operational state and telemetry information are collected according to the specified profile and exported in a manner and format defined by a local policy on each node along the path. MPLS Network Actions (MNA) techniques are meant to indicate actions to be performed on any combination of Label Switched Paths, MPLS packets, and the node itself, and to transfer data needed for these actions. This document explores the MNA mechanisms to collect and transport the on-path operational state, and telemetry information using IOAM data fields, including the IOAM-DEX Option.